ENVIRONMENTAL ADVANTAGES

Pollution from existing disposal methods is reduced

Waste poultry litter has traditionally been stored in the open to be used in the ploughing season as a manure, causing significant odour problems and the leaching of nitrates and other pollutants into the water supply, as well as damage to the atmosphere from methane.

Improved biosecurity

The litter is delivered to the plants in covered lorries as soon as it becomes available at the farms. At each plant, odours and other pollutants are contained and destroyed through the use of a specially designed storage facility and the early combustion of the material at high temperatures.

Soil nutrients in the manure are reused

The ash produced by the process is marketed as an environmentally friendly, nitrogen-free fertiliser, rich in phosphate and potash and other key plant nutrients, which are thus recycled.

Gaseous emissions are cleaner than from traditional power stations

The chemical composition of poultry litter ensures that the level of noxious gases released, such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, are a small fraction of those emitted by the coal-fired generation process, and are well within the UK and European Union statutory limits. Fibrowatt helps reduce the "greenhouse effect", since it adds no new CO2 to the natural carbon cycle.

Fibrowatt encourages improvements in poultry farming methods

Fibrowatt incentivizes poultry farmers to produce drier poultry litter, thus helping with the trend towards improving the conditions under which they rear their birds, including, for example, improved ventilation, drinking equipment and feed quality, as well as lowered stocking densities.

NEIGHBOURHOOD CONSIDERATIONS

Location

Fibrowatt's plants are, where possible, sited on existing industrial estates and are designed to be environmentally neutral with low visual impact on the surroundings.

Noise

Careful attention is paid to reducing the level of noise generated by the plants to a minimum, achieving levels of less than 50 decibels at 100 metres (similar to the noise in a busy office).

Smell

Fibrowatt's plants are able to avoid producing any odour nuisance, thanks to the carefully controlled environment in their fuel storage halls and the use of closely covered lorries for moving fuel. In fact, where a plant is located in an area of intensive poultry production, the operation of the plant will generally reduce the local background levels of offensive odours.

Employment

200-400 people are employed on each site during the construction of the plant. When it is up and running, there are 20-40 permanent jobs on-site, with significant additional local employment in the provision of services and the injection of significant new cash into the local economy.

Traffic

There will generally be a reduction in the overall number of vehicle movements per day transporting the litter, since large numbers of small open tractors and trailers previously moving manure around farmland are replaced by fewer large vehicles using major roads only.

Fibrowatt's contribution to the environment has been recognised by its winning of a number of environmental awards, including Major Commendations in the 1996 UK Business Commitment to the Environment Awards and the 1997 UK Environment Awards for Engineers.

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