ANOTHER waste plant could soon be “dumped” on Basildon.

Plans are in the pipeline to build a second facility at Courtauld Road, which would handle 65,000 tonnes of food and garden waste a year.

Material Change Ltd is looking to build the new composting facility as the company prepares to take over the treatment of biowaste across Essex and Southend.

If approved, it would be built right next to the £800,000 waste treatment plant already under construction by UrbaserBalfour Beatty and would become the fourth waste depot in Basildon.

The proposed new “anaerobic digestion in-vessel composting”

plant would turn food and garden waste into liquid fertiliser and biogas.

Urbaser Balfour Beatty’s site, which is scheduled to open in July, will be one of the largest facilities of its kind in Europe dealing with 400,000 tonnes of black bag rubbish a year.

More than 300 vehicles a day, including 206 heavy lorries, will visit the site once it is operating.

The borough is also home to Veolia’s Pitsea Landfill site, which accepts 800,000 tonnes of rubbish a year.

Heard Environmental is also building a new waste recycling depot on land south of Terminus Drive, PItsea, which will handle 49,000 tonnes of waste a year.

Sandra Hillier, Tory councillor for Langdon Hills said residents were fed up with their hometown being used as the “waste tip of Essex”.

She added: “Pitsea is full enough with waste treatment depots, but unfortunately, this is a site that has been highlighted by County Hall for this purpose, so the chances of fighting it, much as I would like to, are pretty slim. But thank God it is not an incinerator, so it shouldn’t produce any smells.

“The concern for residents is traffic, because during rush hour it is a nightmare already.

“So when it comes before the planning committee, we must make sure we get the best deal for residents and restrict delivery times.”

Material Change was chosen by Essex County Council and Southend Council from six companies as the preferred bidder to treat and recycle Essex’s food and garden waste for the next 20 years.

The company will need planning permission before the new Courtauld Road plant can be built.

An Essex County Council spokesman said once the application was received it would fully address the traffic impact from the proposed development.

Material Change’s managing director Ed Bastow said: “We are very pleased to have achieved preferred bidder status from Essex County Council and Southend Council.

“We are proud we can offer a solution whereby the food and mixed food and garden waste produced by local residents is able to be treated locally.

“This means transport costs are kept to a minimum and emissions of methane and carbon dioxide are reduced.”