Members consider potential ‘next steps’ as feasibility study highlights options for waste management

Members at today’s (29 November 2023) Communities and Place Committee noted and considered an independent feasibility study which delivered potential options for how Highland Council manages its waste in the future. 

The study provided members with an examination of the potential for developing an Energy from Waste (EfW) facility at the closed Longman landfill site (Inverness), the site which hosts the Inverness waste transfer station. 

It also provided detail on the option of using the services of EfW facilities out with Highland to process the non-recyclable residual waste collected by the local authority. 

Members were not being asked today to commit any capital or revenue investment, but rather consider the pros and cons of each option, and the proposed future exploratory steps.  

There are two principal options open to Highland Council. Either: 

• Send the residual waste, that which won’t be recycled, to an energy-from-waste facility out with the Highland area.  

• or process waste collected by The Highland Council at an energy-from-waste facility located locally, potentially at the closed Longman landfill site, Inverness. 

The report states that if members favoured a locally based EfW option a realistic operational date could be 2032 and would still require a number of environmental, planning and political approvals. 

Chair of the Communities and Place Committee, Cllr Graham MacKenzie, said: “There is an evolving, ever-changing operating environment for waste management, the pace of change accelerating in recent years, reflecting the climate changing requirements of Scottish and UK Governments. 

“Underpinning much of the change in waste management operations within Scotland is the impending ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal waste from 31 December 2025.” 

He added: “Highland Council has a medium-term solution in place through its an existing contract.  

“This ensures that the biodegradable municipal waste – residual waste – collected by Highland Council will not go to landfill, but instead will be processed at a licensed energy-from-waste facility.  

Further work will be undertaken over the coming months to prepare a perspective for the end of the first quarter of 2024/25 as to whether there are reasonable grounds to recommend progressing, or halting, the assessment of an Inverness-located energy-from-waste facility towards preparing for a planning application.  

The report can be found under Item 7 within the Communities and Place Committee papers.