A MULTI-million pound energy from waste facility on Teesside will start processing rubbish from neighbouring Northumberland after passing stringent tests.

The £70m extension at SITA UK's site at Haverton Hill, near Billingham, has been handed over by contractors to the company and is now producing electricity for the National Grid.

The extension, which has been built on behalf of Northumberland County Council, will enable an additional 136,000 tonnes of waste to be diverted annually from landfill.

A Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract has been signed to keep rubbish coming from Northumberland for the next 28 years.

Richard Hinchcliffe, SITA UK's general manager for the Northumberland PFI contract, said: "This major new facility will ensure we are able to achieve our commitments to Northumberland and the rest of the North-East.

"I am really pleased that the construction project and the testing of some extremely complex equipment has been commissioned without a hitch and exceeded all expectations.

"As Northumberland County Council's partner, we are committed to major investment in state-of-the-art new facilities that can help achieve ambitious landfill diversion targets that have been set under our contract.

"The extension at the energy-from-waste facility has been designed to the very highest environmentally friendly standards - far higher than the toughest European requirements."

The firm is anticipating handling around 110,000 tonnes of waste from Northumberland in the next few years, rising to 130,000 tonnes in later years.

The spare capacity - estimated at about 20-25,000 tonnes a year in the early years - will be made available at market prices to other councils or commercial customers, providing additional opportunity to divert more waste from landfill.

The extension alone will produce around 10MW of electricity, which is enough power to supply the energy needs for around 12,000 homes.

This extra production means that in total over 30MW of power will be generated by the whole facility. The power produced will be fed into the National Grid.