Keeping warm on pellets of household rubbish

Press, 21 June 1980, Page 16

Keeping warm on pellets of household rubbish

From

KEN COATES

in London

There is rubbish to burn down in West Sussex. But far from going up in Smoke at the local dump it is being used as a valuable energy source for heating, and to help generate electricity.

A pilot project at Westhampnett, near Chichester, is leading the world in turning household waste into highly combustible pellets that have from one half to two-thirds the calorific value of coal. The ' dull grey pellets might not look exciting, but they bum well, giving a steady heat. Officials of the West Sussex County Council and the Department of the Environment, which injected a £250,000 subsidy into the £750,000 experiment, are jubilant. “After two years of much hard work and many setbacks, we have the plant about right now,” said the county waste disposal officer, Mr Austin Layboume. Two engineering firms designed and manufactured the machinery.

If West Sussex can recycle rubbish successfully, turning it into valuable fuel, why cannot Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin do the same?

Only those cities can answer that q :estion with certainty, but there are factors favo”ring the Chichester scheme. Chichester with a population of 100,000 faces high rubbish disposal costs, mainly because of a shortage of suitable land for burying it. Most of the area is overlaid with chalk from which the city’s water supply is extracted. Bury-

ing rubbish in many areas carries with it the serious risk of pollution. The more expensive it is to transport and dump household rubbish, the more economic the fuel recycling plant becomes, And the greater the volume, the cheaper it gets.

The county council has more than 4000 boilers in offices, hospitals, schools and other institutions. Schools are already being changed from oil because of cost, but it is difficult to obtain gas supplies in the south-west, and coal is also expensi. e. This opens the way for fuel pellets from waste, which can supplement coal. Not all rubbish thrown out. for the. garbage men can end up as hard pel-

jets, though a surprising 40 per cent by weight can be burned. Glass, ash and vegetable material is removed by screening, and an electro-magnet plucks out metal objects.

The main engineering problem was to come up with machinery which kept the rubbish moving through without clogging up and starting to ferment. Engineers estimate that another 20 per cent by weight of fine material not suitable for pelletmaking, can be used for making compost.

Just three men can operate the automated plant from a control cabin high above the machinery. One of the main components has been devel-

oped from a stock feed?pelletiser, and engineers , have designed pulverisers to break down the high--calorific waste. The West Sussex.-? County Council, which has ’ been processing - rubbish v for fuel since 1975 for a:* local cement works, M'J? now planning a deal with electricity authorities ; supply fuel_ pellets toj Brighton power stajion.s; J* ‘ “We will build a; larges plant to develop the mar-c&; ket fully, and can set theA; price, depending on whate* fuel we are against,” says Mr Lay-gb bourne. ' *> He has his eye on sup->' plying horticulturlists? with pellet fuel to heafy their glasshouses. “There is a great appeal a

about doing more with'-.' domestic rubbish than, just”'; dumping it in holes in ground,” says the man of the council’s gen-.';; eral purposes Mr lan Elliott. ■ -

He estimates ; that pro-e--ducing fuel can at least be~ a break-even, and possiblya profitable venture, com-7, pared with the cost ofv other means of getting riaof the area’s rubbish. As Mr Laybourne sayst; "It might be all rubbish, to) you, but it is my bread: and butter.” >

Other countries are ing a keen interest . inf, what Britain is achieving . in recycling household.;; f waste. Belgium has order--;: i ed 100 tonnes of for its own i-;