SIXTEEN elected members and officers of Scottish Borders Council made a 700-mile round trip last week to visit a state-of-the-art waste treatment facility (WTF) at the Bristol port of Avonmouth, writes ANDREW KEDDIE.

The jaunt was to inspect the cutting edge processes which will be used if and when New Earth Solutions (NES) starts operating a similar integrated plant at Easter Langlee in Galashiels.

The cross party delegation included council leader David Parker and administration councillors Gordon Edgar, Jim Brown, David Paterson and Vicky Davidson. The Conservative opposition was represented by councillors Michelle Ballantyne, Simon Mountford and Sandy Scott.

A bus was hired to convey the delegation to and from the Borders although it is understood one of the party travelled by train and another by air.

The trip, the costs of which will be met by the council, involved an overnight stay at a hotel on Thursday before Friday’s site visit.

“A number of councillors took the opportunity to familiarise themselves with NES and the technical detail of what the company is doing,” said an SBC spokesperson this week.

“The visit allows councillors to be better informed as they oversee delivery of the contract by NFS with the council.” New figures suggest the plant – which will employ new and so far confidential technologies designed primarily to cut the amount of waste going to landfill - cannot come soon enough for the council.

In common with other local authorities, SBC must meet stringent Scottish Government targets, ensuring that 70% of all waste is recycled by 2025 and that landfill waste is reduced to just 5% by the same deadline.

In addition, a ban of any biodegradable waste going to landfill will come into force in 2021.

But data released by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), which has yet to grant the Langlee WTF an operating permit, show that the amount of waste recycled by SBC in 2013 was 41% - down from 46% in 2011.

Across Scotland, the average recycling rate over the same two-year period increased from 40% to 42% On the council’s own admission, its recycling performance is expected to fall by a further 5% this year as a result of its decision to abandon kerbside green waste collections for 38,000 households on April 1.

When SBC signed a contract – worth a reported £80million over 24 years – with New Earth Solutions back in April, 2011, it was predicted the WTF at Langlee would take a year to construct and become operational in October 2012.

But through a series of design modifications and with the company evolving new gas-powered technologies to improving the plant’s energy generation and rycycling capability, the project did not receive planning consent until September last year, despite objections from neighbours including Persimmon Homes.

Under the terms of the deal between the council and NES, the latter must deliver the WTF by 2019 at the latest.

Asked for an update of progress, an SBC spokesperson told the Border Telegraph: “The proposed integrated waste treatment and energy recovery facility at Easter Langlee was programmed to commence construction in spring/summer 2014, with an opening date of late summer 2015.

“Planning permission for the energy recovery facility [there was an adjustment to the original proposal] to complement the existing, implemented mechanical treatment permission has been secured and an application for a modification to the operating permit is being progressed with SEPA.

“A new delivery timetable is being agreed. When the modified operating permit [from SEPA] has been secured, further work on the integrated facility can be progressed and a revised construction date will be communicated to the community and stakeholders.

“At present, the council remains on track to meet the 2021 ban on biodegradable waste to landfill as outlined in the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012 and the new plant will assist with attaining this in the long term.” Councillor Parker said the Avonmouth trip was “valuable and illuminating”.

“The integrated WTF is a really big deal for our council as it will transform the way we deal with our waste and help us comply with our zero waste obligations,” he told the Border Telegraph.

“It also involves a major investment, in partnership with NES, which requires councillors to carry out due diligence and, in that respect, the trip was necessary. I am satisfied after our visit that we are on the right track and confident that the WTF will be up and running before the 2019 contract deadline, hopefully by mid-2017.” The likelihood of the new plant not being operational for another three years would appear to strengthen the case of former councillor Andrew Farquhar in his bid to have the green waste decision overturned.

Last Tuesday he handed over a petition in those terms, containing 7,765 signatures, to Councillor Alec Nicol, chairman of SBC’s Petitions Committee which will consider the bid at Newtown on Thursday, October 23. The meeting starts at 10am and is open to the public.

“The council has claimed the costs associated with landfilling garden waste placed in general [black] refuse bins will be wiped out when the new WTF becomes operational, but that could be three years away,” said Mr Farquhar.

“The green bin uplifts should never have been withdrawn until the WTF was up and running and proving its worth.”