Here at Milton Keynes Waste Recovery Park, we bring together three state-of-the-art technologies:

Mechanical Treatment:

This a series of conveyor belts that take the black sack waste through separating machinery, which sorts the waste out. It picks out items, such as plastic bottles and metal cans, which have accidentally been thrown away. This means they can be recycled into new products. We extract at least 9% of the incoming waste for recycling.

The technology also separates food and biodegradable items and transfers them to the Anaerobic Digester, while the remaining waste goes through to the Advanced Thermal Treatment facility.

The Mechanical Treatment technology is able to handle between 120,000 and 132,000 tonnes of waste per year.

Anaerobic Digester:

Food and biodegradable items are extracted from the waste as it goes through the mechanical treatment technology. These items are then processed in a fully enclosed anaerobic digester to generate renewable energy. This process also creates a compost-like material, which is made available for use on brownfield sites.

The anaerobic digestion technology has a capacity of 32,000 tonnes per year.

Advanced Thermal Treatment:

Any waste remaining, which is not recyclable or compostable is used as a fuel. The ATT process transforms the waste into a gas (synthesis gas or syngas), which in turn is combusted to generate high temperature steam which creates renewable electricity.

The Advanced Thermal Treatment capacity is 93,600 tonnes per year.

Through Anaerobic Digestion and Advanced Thermal Treatment technologies, the facility will export around 5.8MW of electricity to the National Grid per year - which is enough energy to power the equivalent of around 11,000 homes - similar to the number of households in Wolverton and Newport Pagnell combined.