A newly negotiated recycling deal by waste company Viridor, sister company to South West Water, could be an interesting indicator of how Pennon Group, which owns both companies, might approach the sludge market which is set to be opened up to competition in the near future.
Viridor is set to continue its partnership with Kent County Council by processing and selling dry kerbside recycling collected from households across West and Mid-Kent. The contract will officially commence in July and will run for two years, with the option of a further two year extension.
Responding to challenging commodity market conditions over the last twelve months, Viridor has developed an innovative partnership with a ‘self-help’ style contract agreed. The contract sees both parties sharing an element of the risk that fluctuating commodity market price movements deliver.
With around 60,000 tonnes of recycling collected from households from across seven districts in Kent every year being transported to Viridor’s state-of-the-art Materials Recycling Facility in Crayford, south east London. Material such as paper, card, plastic bottles, cans and glass will be sorted using optical sortation, mechanical process and manual quality control.
Chris Jonas, Director of Business Development for Viridor said of the partnership:
“Being able to continue our partnership with Kent County Council is a fantastic move for Viridor, Kent County Council and the residents of the County. By working together we are able to increase the amount of material that Kent recycles by using a state-of-the-art Materials Recycling Facility and also increase the amount of high quality recyclate entering the manufacturing sector in our ever more circular economy.”
A spokesperson for Kent County Council added:
“Following a comprehensive procurement exercise involving a review of our recycling and resource management services we are delighted to award this contract to Viridor for the processing and onward sale of kerbside recycling. We have worked with Viridor over the last few years and appreciate they are positioned at the cutting-edge of new technologies.”
Earlier this month Pennon Group said its 30k-strong Viridor customer base would give it “significant competitive advantage” in the retail water market when it opens for competition in 2017 and could move its newly-formed Pennon Water Services subsidiary to a top five position.
According to Pennon local authorities in particular will provide it with a platform for growth – Viridor’s key relationships with the top 14 local authority customers present an opportunity worth £54 million in revenue in the water market.
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