£150m investment in ‘green heating’ for Glasgow

By LUCINDA CAMERON
Published on 03/08/2012 00:00

Hundreds of homes in Scotland’s largest city could be heated using recycled rubbish.

Plans for a new recycling plant on the site of a former incinerator in Polmadie, Glasgow, have been agreed between the council and UK renewable energy and waste company Viridor.

The new incinerator plant would recycle around 200,000 tonnes of waste a year, to produce heat and power for social housing.

Glasgow City Council appointed Viridor to build the plant, which the company said will create 250 jobs over the 25 years of the public-private partnership agreement.

The new plant, subject to planning permission and which will cost around £150 million to build, would save £254m on the council’s waste disposal bill, 
according to the local authority.

Viridor will finance, construction and running of the site and the council will pay an annual fee for waste disposal.

Council leader Gordon Matheson said: “Sustainability has to deliver for Glaswegians. It has to make life better for our most vulnerable citizens and communities and it has to provide good-quality jobs.”

Colin Paterson, Scottish regional director of the company, said: “This places Glasgow at the forefront of European cities by transforming how it sustainably manages its green bin residual waste.”

But Patrick Harvie, Green MSP for Glasgow, said: “A number of local residents have concerns about this project and I recently met with them. It does strike me as somewhat incompatible with Scotland’s zero-waste ambitions that our biggest city could become home to a plant that relies on a constant stream of waste materials.”