Planning application DCC/4135/2019 will come before Devon County Council's Development Management Committee this week, proposing:
Change of use from In-Vessel Composting Facility to Incinerator Bottom Ash (IBA) Recycling Facility to import and process up to 90,000 tonnes of IBA per annum, Former TEG In Vessel Composting Site, Stuart Way, Hill Barton Business Park, Exeter
The processing of IBA has been a long running issue in Devon. Readers may remember the plans to process IBA at Buckfastleigh’s Whitecleave Quarry, which we posted about at the time, and which were rejected at appeal. Plans were then in play to build a processing plant in Plymouth – which came to nothing. Now the material – currently shipped to the Netherlands – is set to be processed in East Devon.
Concerns have been raised by local residents on noise, traffic, visual impact, dust and the nature of the material to be processed. According to the officer’s report:
6.5. The application proposes processing up to 90,000 tonne of material per annum, with this figure derived through the current contracts of the applicant and potential future operations: 60,000 tonnes from the Plymouth energy from waste facility – this is currently operational with IBA being transported to the Netherlands; 15,000 tonnes from a Bridgwater energy from waste facility – this facility is consented, and construction has commenced; and 15,000 tonnes from Hill Barton energy from waste facility – this facility is consented.
6.6 It is understood that the IBA generated by the Exeter energy from waste facility is currently contracted to be managed in Avonmouth.
The IBA will be processed into aggregates (IBAA) which will "reduce the need for land-won aggregates":
6.30. The primary benefit of the application would be the management of a waste material and production of a secondary aggregate within Devon that would reduce the need for land-won aggregates and the use of natural resources, an approach supported by the Aggregates Hierarchy in the Devon Minerals Plan.
Each year, "approximately 7,450 tonnes of metals will be recovered" and "67,500 tonnes of IBAA will be exported from the site".
6.30. Plymouth City Council require 95% of the IBA produced at the Plymouth energy recovery facility should be recycled to optimise the use of the IBA in the most sustainable way. Details to secure the use of the treated bottom ash as an aggregate for local infrastructure and engineering projects has also been approved by Plymouth City Council, which includes a marketing strategy.
To put that IBAA figure in context, figures for 2017 – still the most recent available – showed that Devon’s land-won sand and gravel sales were 598,000 tonnes.
