Veolia has been awarded a contract to provide healthcare waste management services for NHS Test and Trace’s new Rosalind Franklin Laboratory, a state-of-the-art, very-high-throughput COVID-19 laboratory in Royal Leamington Spa.
Procured under a Crown Commercial Services framework, Veolia’s teams will self deliver a fully-comprehensive service covering all aspects of the waste management process at the facility, which is designed to process hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 tests per day, and operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
By using specialist treatment and disposal facilities the compliant treatment route will maximise the energy recovery and lower carbon emissions.
The service will cover all aspects of the waste management process, from initial collection at the point of production and on-site transfer and consolidation, through to offsite transportation, treatment, and disposal.
The laboratory waste will primarily be disposed of at Veolia's Energy Recovery Facility in Tyseley and help supply green energy for Birmingham.
Significant emissions reductions can be achieved by using energy-recovery facilities, with recent successful demonstrations showing that clinical waste can be safely and compliantly destroyed and achieve more than 60% reductions in carbon emissions compared to other commonly-applied treatments.
Veolia will also collect and treat waste at its Empire Treatment Plant and Norwood facilities on a daily basis, including the recovery of liquid solvents and transformation into secondary liquid fuel.
This process is another way in which Veolia creates green energy from waste by producing a blended fuel, which is used as a replacement to fossil fuel, in the manufacture of cement.
Donald Macphail, chief operating officer for treatment at Veolia , said: “Using our specialist teams and modern treatment facilities we can ensure compliant handling and disposal, and also gain the advantage of energy recovery to support industry and the grid.
“We look forward to working with the teams at the Rosalind Franklin laboratory in Royal Leamington Spa, and supporting the efforts to monitor and control the pandemic.”