15 Ashdown Probus Club members and partners recently visited the Newhaven household waste energy recovery facility operated by Veoli.

After the display of a video film, describing the facility and operations, visitors, suitably attired and wearing headphones, were ushered around the facility with opportunities to ask questions. They saw the transport bay, where articulated trucks, bin lorries and other vehicles discharge waste before being loaded into the incinerators, the heat from which could be felt by those present. After being escorted through the works, they arrived at the control area, which monitors the facility’s operations. The plant, which cost £175m. and, entering into use in 2012, has a useful life of over 30 years, which is capable of extension. It employs 38 people around the clock.

It operates similarly to a traditional power station. The incinerators convert household waste from the South Downs area, otherwise destined for landfill and unsuitable for recycling, into electricity supplied to the National Grid. Furnaces running at a minimum of 850 degrees centigrade generate steam to drive the turbines to create the electricity. The addition of oxygen reduces the carbon content of the resulting ash, which is sold commercially. Gases discharged during the burning and discharged through chimneys are monitored.