4R Recycling, part of 4R Group Ltd, has been awarded a 25 year contract with Shanks Waste Management to process digestate produced by its AD facility proposed as part of the Wakefield PFI contract.

This contract will see 4R handle up to 40,000 tonnes of digestate annually when the facility becomes operational, expected mid-2015. The digestate will be transported by 4R and used in land restoration across Wakefield and throughout the former Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire coalfields.

Shanks, who signed a contract with Wakefield Council earlier this month, proposes to build a residual waste treatment facility in South Kirkby, West Yorkshire, comprising a Materials Recycling Facility, autoclave, anaerobic digestion facility and composting facility. The facility will process up to 230,000 tonnes of residual waste from homes in Wakefield per year and the contract is being part funded by the UK Green Investment Bank.

Mike Holt, Managing Director at 4R, says, “We are delighted to be supporting Shanks in this important project to divert waste away from landfill and to find alternative uses for materials that would otherwise just be considered ‘waste’. Our scientists continually strive to find new and innovative solutions for recycling such materials and we firmly believe that these non-source segregated, fully treated materials could be made acceptable for recycling to agricultural land, in the same way as biosolids are currently recycled and controlled.”

4R last year won another 25 year contract with 3SE, a partnership of Shanks and SSE, to transport and recycle the digestate at the proposed Bolton Road facility as part of the Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham PFI contract.