Pitsea waste management site is a large landfill site on the north side of the
Thames estuary from
Pitsea in
Basildon,
Essex.
It is the second largest landfill site in the UK
operated by
Veolia Ltd.
receiving 800,000 tonnes of solid waste per year, mostly from the
London conurbation
The Greater London Built-up Area, or Greater London Urban Area, is a conurbation in south-east England that constitutes the continuous urban sprawl of London, and includes surrounding adjacent urban towns as defined by the Office for National Sta ...
.
The decomposition of organic matter within the landfill generates a gas rich which is rich in methane. This
landfill gas is collected by a network of pipes and since 2001 has been used to power generators producing 16.2 MW of electricity. The electricity is sent into the
National Grid; this amounts to about 94.4 GWh per year sufficient to power 14,300 homes.
After the site closes in the early 2020s, the
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds plans to convert it to a nature reserve.
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References
Landfills in the United Kingdom
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