A WASTE recovery park which will turn rubbish into enough electricity to power 40,000 homes a year is now up and running.

The start of full service at Allerton Waste Recovery Park (AWRP) near Knaresborough began this month following a testing period.

The facility can treat up to 320,000 tonnes of waste each year and will divert more than 90 per cent of waste that would otherwise have gone to landfill, as well as further increasing recycling.

The site processes waste through a mechanical treatment plant, which separates recyclable and organic materials.

The organic material is fed into an anaerobic digester, which will generate renewable energy and treat up to 40,000 tonnes of waste every year.

The remaining non-organic waste will go through the incinerator and be used to generate enough electricity to power at least 40,000 homes a year.

By-products will be treated and recycled into aggregate for roads and reprocessed metal.

It is the result of a partnership between North Yorkshire County Council and the City of York Council to process waste over the next 25 years. Most of the waste treated will come from households in the county.

The councils say it will reduce carbon emissions by the equivalent of taking 12,000 cars off the road overnight.

But opponents to the site say incineration releases the carbon content in the waste into the atmosphere as CO2.

North Yorkshire Waste Action Group objected to the development, mounting a legal challenge against the scheme and collecting a 10,000 name petition before and after planning permission was granted in 2012.

The plant took three years to build and will be operated by infrastructure firm Amey.

County Councillor Andrew Lee, executive member for waste management, said: “We are delighted to see this project come to fruition and for Allerton Waste Recovery Park to begin full service.

"The facility is a step forward in the way the county treats its waste, by turning it into a resource and recovering energy from it – helping the UK to become less reliant on gas and coal for electricity.

“Allerton Park is an important part of our plan for maximising the benefit from waste well into the future.

“It is not intended as an alternative to kerbside recycling by district councils or recycling through the county council’s 22 household waste recycling centres. Those remain the best ways to recycle. But Allerton Park enables us to extract the last few remaining items of recyclable material.”

Councillor Andrew Waller, acting leader and executive member for the environment at City of York Council, said: “We will continue to support our residents to reduce the waste we produce and recycle more, but this treatment plant is a very effective and positive way to minimise the impact of non-recyclable waste.

“During the commissioning and testing, we’ve seen a dramatic reduction in the amount of waste going to landfill and a benefit that some material going there is being recycled and reused.

"It saves money on expensive landfill taxes and even produces energy which we can sell back into the national grid.”

The facility has a visitor centre which can be booked through Amey’s website at; allerton-waste-recovery-park.co.uk. and view how the facility operates on a daily basis.