Foresight leads green charge with East London recycling plant

A new organic waste facility to be built in East London's docks has received the backing it needs to begin development.

Organic waste business The TEG Group has secured funding of £21 million to build a facility in Dagenham Dock in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.

The new development, which will reportedly include London’s first anaerobic digestion plant (allowing multiple inputs), will be built on the Mayor of London’s 60 acre London Sustainable Industries Park. The park has already seen £10 million committed for development from Boris Johnson who says the facility is ‘fantastic news providing new employment opportunities’.

TEG Group’s £21 million funding is partly made up of an £11 million commitment by Foresight Group. The cash, which has been placed into a new special purpose vehicle called Biogas, consists of £9 million from the Foresight Environmental Fund and £2 million from its UK Waste Resources and Energy Investments Fund (UKWREI).

UKWREI has secured an additional £2 million of private sector funding from Quercus Assets Selection taking the equity investment to £12 million.

Alongside the equity portion, senior debt of £7.9 million is being provided by London Waste and Recycling Board and Investec Bank.

According to The TEG Group, the new facility will be capable of processing 49,000 tonnes per annum of food and green waste via anaerobic digestion and in-vessel composting.

TEG will construct and operate the plant on behalf of the Biogas special purpose vehicle and expect to generate £16 million in revenues.

Mark Fishwick, CEO of TEG, says that the deal will lead to London becoming a ‘model European city’ for recycling.

Business secretary Vince Cable adds, ‘This project represents the first waste investment in the run up to the establishment of the UK Green Investment Bank and sends a clear message to the market and to potential co-investors that we are committed to investing in the UK’s green infrastructure.’

Hunter Ruthven

Hunter Ruthven

Hunter Ruthven graduated from the university of Sussex in geography and politics before joining Vitesse Media. He was the Editor for GrowthBusiness.co.uk from 2012 to 2014, before moving on to Caspian...

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