Sir Gavin Williamson, MP for South Staffordshire, recently visited Veolia’s Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) at the Four Ashes Industrial Estate.
The MP for South Staffordshire met with Steve Mitchell, Veolia’s Regional Director for the area, and Hilary Hampton, Veolia’s Communications and Education Manager, for a tour around the facility.
Veolia’s ERF takes waste that cannot be recycled or composted and burns it, creating steam in a water tube boiler which powers a turbo-generator on-site. The gases from the waste burning go through an extensive cleaning process before being released, with the extracted pollutants being sent off for safe disposal at another Veolia site.
The facility produces around 29 megawatts of electricity for the National Grid per year which can power 66,000 homes.
Sir Gavin Williamson said: “It was fascinating to see the work Veolia do at their Four Ashes Site to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill and to help meet our energy demands.
“Given the challenges of meeting net-zero emissions by 2050, it is vital that we keep investing in ways to maximise recycling where possible and generating energy from waste where we can.”
Steve Mitchell, Regional Director at Veolia, said, " We were delighted to show Sir Gavin Williamson MP around our Staffordshire Energy Recovery Facility in his constituency to demonstrate its important role in managing non-recyclable residual waste.
"We also had the opportunity to discuss the incoming Resources and Waste Strategy reforms and how it can best help to drive a circular economy"
