The Glasgow Recycling & Renewable Energy Centre (GRREC) is a state-of-the-art residual waste treatment facility designed, built and operated in partnership between Glasgow City Council and Viridor (Glasgow) Ltd.
The GRREC has transformed how Glasgow deals with residual waste and promotes a culture focussed on the extraction of high-quality recyclables and generation of low-carbon energy from material which was historically disposed at landfill.
Summary
The three-step residual waste treatment process is:
- Step 1: Smart-Materials Recycling Facility - separating the waste to recover anything that can be recycled
- Step 2: Anaerobic Digestion – converting food and organic waste into renewable electricity through a process of anaerobic digestion
- Step 3: Advanced Conversion Facility – Advanced thermal treatment technology then generates renewable electricity from residual material
The facility achieved full service in January 2019 and the Partnership has already delivered major achievements for Glasgow, including:
- Diversion of residual waste from landfill
- Extraction of high-quality recyclable material
- Generation of low-carbon energy which is fed to the national grid
- Reduction in carbon emissions
- Provided high quality job and development opportunities and stimulated investment in the local economy
- Sponsorship of the Industrial Cadets STE(A)M programme and construction of a dedicated visitor centre
Background
In 2019, Glasgow City Council produced in excess of 250k tonnes of waste from households across Glasgow. In the past, the residual fraction – i.e. the mixed “waste” fraction remaining after the uptake of domestic recycling services – of this material would have been landfilled. The amount of material landfilled was well in excess of 100k tonnes annually.
Landfill is not a sustainable solution to manage residual waste. The climate impact caused by the release of methane gas, as waste biodegrades within landfill, is well known. Methane has a global warming potential more than 100 times that of carbon dioxide.
The GRREC captures and makes best use of energy to minimise the emission of greenhouse gases. This supports Glasgow’s Climate Emergency Plan to become carbon neutral by 2030 and the Scottish Government’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 90% by 2050.
The facility has been built within an existing council owned property at Polmadie, South of Glasgow’s City Centre. The three-step residual waste treatment process is summarised below.
- Step 1: Smart-Materials Recycling Facility - Boosting recycling from municipal waste is the first job of the facility and this happens in the Smart Materials Recycling Facility (S-MRF). The S-MRF releases the waste resources from household waste, separating the waste to recover anything that can be recycled.
- Step 2: Anaerobic Digestion - Next, the facility processes the food and organic waste, removing it from the waste stream for conversion into renewable electricity through a process of anaerobic digestion which uses bacteria to release energy from biodegradable material.
- Step 3: Advanced Conversion Facility - Finally, diverting what cannot be recycled from landfill, the advanced conversion facility recovers renewable energy for local use by heating the waste, producing a synthetic gas which is controlled and converted to provide enough energy to heat and power around 22,000 homes – saving Glasgow 28,000 tonnes of CO2 every year.
Improvements Achieved and Challenges Overcome
In a short space of time, the GRREC has already made a major impact on how Glasgow manages residual waste and helped drive the City towards a low-carbon future. The overarching goals of the Partnership are broadly defined as:
- The diversion of residual waste from landfill.
- The extraction of high-quality recyclable material which can later be used as a raw material and put towards a beneficial end use.
- The generation of low-carbon energy which is distributed to the national grid.
- Reduce carbon emissions to promote sustainable economic development in Glasgow.
- Implement a package of community benefits to provide high quality job and development opportunities, stimulate investment in the local economy and raise awareness of sustainability matters.
Sustainable development is at the heart of the GRREC and it is delivering a long-term benefit to the both the local and wider community. The key achievements to date are as follows:
- 75% landfill diversion rate, reducing Glasgow’s carbon and environmental impact.
- 9% of high-quality recyclable material extracted and put towards a beneficial use, such as aggregate material to manufacture concrete blocks for the construction sector.
- Circa 60,000 MWh of low-carbon electricity generated and distributed to the national grid annually, enough to power 22,000 homes.
- 90,000 tonnes less carbon emissions than landfill each year, driving forward Glasgow’s sustainability commitments.
- The potential to supply hot water to homes through a district heat network which could provide benefits in terms of carbon reduction and also help tackle fuel poverty.
- Stimulating business growth with the award of circa £60.8m in work opportunities in Glasgow, mostly awarded to Small & Medium Enterprises and Social Enterprises.
- Provision of 180 free capacity building workshops and events to encourage local businesses to improve their operating practices.
- Employment of over 500 people during the construction period alone including the recruitment of 110 New Entrants.
- 194 work experience placements and 20 apprenticeships to date.
- Over 5,511 visitors to site, including 146 schools and some 2,176 pupils.
The GRREC is a unique facility tailored to Glasgow’s specific ambitions and performance criteria. With any development of this scale – in excess of £175m investment - challenges will arise which must be overcome. The key challenges encountered and overcome in Partnership between Glasgow City Council and Viridor (Glasgow) Ltd are detailed below:
- The residual waste treatment contract which ultimately became GRREC was procured under a competitive dialogue process. This type of process is unlike how Local Authorities normally tend to procure service contracts and required close working with private sector suppliers as they developed solutions. The council had to adapt to this process and appoint a dedicated procurement team to manage the process, learning lessons along the way.
- During the construction and commissioning phase of the GRREC, a number of key suppliers unfortunately entered administration and were unable to fully deliver their contracted elements. This resulted in unexpected and unavoidable disruption to the completion of the facility. This challenge was ultimately overcome through the appointment of a specialist management contractor who worked closely with Viridor (Glasgow) Ltd and Glasgow City Council to complete and commission the facility.
- Whilst it is positive that Glasgow is managing residual waste at the point of origin, this does create operational challenges at the GRREC site; particularly regarding logistics and potential for congestion / queuing on site. The council has worked closely with Viridor’s operational teams to optimise delivery arrangements and reduce where possible the length of time spent queuing on site to reduce the carbon impact of Glasgow’s residual waste treatment solution.
- The GRREC is a complex facility which relies on three interlinked processes to provide residual waste treatment. All of these processes must work successfully together at all times to achieve the expected landfill diversion and recycling performance. This creates a major challenge which is overcome through the employment of a dedicated team of engineering professionals who manage the GRREC process 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
- The GRREC is located only in close proximity to the City Centre and a number of domestic properties. This gave rise to challenges from a planning / permitting context which had to be overcome. Through effective community engagement, stakeholder meetings and public exhibitions, nearby businesses and residents were broadly supportive of the development which they saw as a move towards a more sustainable future.
“Since securing the GRREC contract to supply their canteen, business has expanded and we have employed a further two members of staff from the local community and may have to employ more, depending on the demand. We have also taken on a few work experience placements as part of the GRREC project and our staff have attended a number of Capacity Building Workshops provided by Viridor GRREC”. - Sandra Robertson, The Roll Shop, Polmadie Road
Future Targets and Goals
Going forward, the GRREC contract provides a huge opportunity to continue to improve recycling, landfill diversion and promote a reduction in carbon emissions. The Partnership is flexible and will respond to changes within the industry and emerging opportunities. A number of specific future targets and goals of the Partnership are summarised below:
- Supply hot water to homes through a district heat network which could provide benefits in terms of carbon reduction and also help tackle fuel poverty.
- Investigate and implement opportunities to make better use of plastic material separated by the S-MRF. Specifically, this may involve the introduction of plastics processing technologies to create a closed-loop plastics recycling solution in Glasgow.
- Develop opportunities to increase the amount of residual waste processed by GRREC to maximise the sustainability benefits of the facility.
- Identify new recycling markets and make best use of recyclable material extracted by GRREC to the deliver the maximum carbon reduction benefit to Glasgow.
- Further consideration to the development of the wider Polmadie site and development of other low-carbon energy technologies to enhance the Partnership’s sustainability ambitions.