Highland Council has lodged detailed plans for its new waste handling facility in Inverness.
Known as The Longman Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), the site off Stadium Road will handle more than half Highland’s residual waste by 2021.
It’s being built as an interim arrangement to meet legislation which will ban all landfilling by 2021.
The site, south-east of the Caley Thistle stadium and the Kessock Bridge, is already a working waste management site.
The plans include office and welfare facilities, a weighbridge, access road, and car parking.
The site won’t be open to the public.
Producing a high quality landscape design embracing its open views close to the city and coastline is a stated aim of the plans.
Around 140,000 tonnes of waste are produced per annum by Highland households and Highland Council business waste customers.
At present, 43% of this material is recycled.
Of the remainder, around 32,000 tonnes is bulked and transported out of the Highlands for disposal in Aberdeenshire.
The rest is landfilled at council sites at Seater in Caithness, Granish in Aviemore, or Duisky landfill site in Lochaber.
Landfilling costs the council around £11m a year.
The new Longman facility is expected to process up to 83,000 tonnes of the residual waste generated in the Highlands annually.
The MRF will remove any items which can be recycled such as cans, bottles, plastic pots and tubs for the production of Refuse Derived Fuel.
This will be compacted and baled on site for onward travel to energy-from-waste plants elsewhere in Scotland, the UK or Europe.
Councillor Allan Henderson, chairman of the council’s Environment, Development and Infrastructure committee said: “The national legislation changes coming in on 1 January 2021 mean, like all other councils, we will not be allowed to landfill our biodegradable municipal waste.
“The aims of this ban are to promote waste being regarded as a commodity or resource, maximise reuse and recycling, and stimulate a circular economy. The landfill ban will also reduce the amount of methane being produced by landfill sites.”
Longer term, the council is considering building its own energy-from-waste plant at the Longman site.
The application will be assessed over the coming weeks before it is presented to the South Area Planning Committee for a decision.
