SunSkips gets a tour of Suffolk’s energy-from-waste plant

At SunSkips, we do our best to educate our clients on what happens to their waste once it’s been collected in our skips.

We believe transparency is essential to a more sustainable future and to help people understand the value of the services we offer.

And in that spirit, SunSkips invited customers on an illuminating visit to SUEZ’s energy-from-waste (EfW) plant in Great Blakenham, Suffolk.

Spearheaded by SunSkips’ commercial account manager Rob Neal, the tour gave customers a first-hand understanding of the facility’s innovative waste recovery methods.

A pioneering waste management operation

In 2006, Suffolk County Council partnered with SUEZ to build a facility that uses leftover waste (after recycling) from homes and businesses in the county to create electricity.

This reduces how much waste goes into landfills, which both protects the environment and saves taxpayers money in landfill taxes. It’s also an alternative to fossil fuels, an important step towards the nation’s net zero goals.

OPINION: Burning waste is eco-friendly, despite what activists say

After construction started in January 2012, the facility was fully operational by December 2014.

The plant deals with a huge amount of waste – around 295,000 tonnes every year, coming from both houses and businesses. It produces 20 megawatts of energy, enough to power about 40,000 homes.

Ash left over from the process is used in aggregate for building roads and construction to make sure nothing goes to waste.

But how exactly does all this happen?

What happens to waste at Suffolk’s EfW plant

There’s quite a lengthy process between throwing out your rubbish and lighting a bulb.

At Great Blakenham, it all starts at the reception hall. Here, lorries bring waste in and dump it in the bunker, which can hold six days’ worth of waste.

From the bunker, waste is grabbed and dropped into the furnace. The grabber is operated from a control room where everything is monitored from.

Air blows into a special grate to make the furnace hot enough to turn water into super-hot steam. This steam makes a turbine spin and generates electricity.

Steam from the turbine is cooled, treated, and reused to conserve resources.

Gases released from burning are cleaned in thorough emissions checks. If unsafe levels of toxicity are detected, the facility stops automatically.

Ash left after burning gets cooled and sorted. Metals are taken out for recycling, and the rest is used for building roads and other projects.

The facility generates enough electricity to power the plant itself and several homes. Extra electricity goes into the National Grid for everyone to use. Around 15 megawatts of heat can also be generated, which could be used to warm nearby buildings.

The facility is shut down twice a year for maintenance.

But before the waste can be processed at the Great Blakenham plant, firms like SunSkips need to do their part to get the waste ready.

Preparing waste to be used as SRF or RDF

You can’t just burn any old waste and convert it into energy.

Rubbish requires specific preparation to be considered suitable as solid recovered fuel (SRF) or refuse-derived fuel (RDF).

RDF is a more basic energy source that comes from standard household waste. They take out the valuable recyclables like wood, metal, paper, and glass before shredding and packaging the rest as fuel.

But SRF is a higher-quality type of RDF. It comes from industrial and construction waste, and is more refined because it goes through a better separation process. This makes it more suitable for generating heat. SRF burns so hot that it can be used in industrial cement kilns.

At SunSkips, we make SRF from Suffolk and Cambridgeshire waste by carefully sorting it through special machines like flip-flow screens, magnets, and air classifiers.

These machines help get a final SRF product with small enough pieces, the right amount of moisture, and lots of caloric value.

It then gets shipped off to the EfW plant at Great Blakenham.

MORE: SRF vs RDF: What’s the difference between the alternative fuels?

Why learning about waste matters

The tour was an enlightening experience, offering SunSkips’ customers a comprehensive understanding of the EfW plant’s intricate workings.

Rob was grateful to the team at SUEZ for showing SunSkips staff and customers around the facilities and giving everyone a better idea of how rubbish becomes energy.

He said, “This gave our customers great insight into how SunSkips ensures the most sustainable routes to disposal for all waste collected.”

The tour group not only got to see the workings of the plant, but also learned more at the dedicated visitor centre, which has seen more than 8,000 guests since it opened in 2014.

Andrea Blundell, SUEZ UK customer compliance manager, said sharing knowledge about waste management fosters an informed approach towards sustainable practices.

She said, “It was great to have you all visit. It’s always beneficial for the customer to see and understand the waste process and we enjoy sharing our knowledge.”

Jim Clarke, plant manager at Suffolk EfW for SUEZ UK, added that site visits are important to working relationships with companies like SunSkips.

He said, “It was great to see you visit the site and learn more about what we do. I look forward to continuing our partnership in the future.”

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Why SunSkips invests in EfW

SunSkips takes pride in its dedication to forwarding waste collected from across East Anglia to EfW facilities, aligning with its ethos of promoting eco-friendly waste disposal practices.

The collaboration between SunSkips and SUEZ is a shining example of industry cooperation aimed at not only managing waste effectively but also enlightening stakeholders about the significance of adopting eco-conscious approaches.

By providing customers with a first-hand experience of the EfW plant, SunSkips reaffirms its role as a responsible waste management leader, actively contributing to a greener future.

SunSkips is proud to send waste collected from across East Anglia to EfW. If you’re interested in finding out how Sunskips can support you with more sustainable waste management, get in touch with our friendly team.