Northamptonshire County Council is set to examine the technologies available in order to avoid landfill allowance trading-scheme fines of £100M a year. The county’s cabinet will, next week, consider an officers’ recommendation that a business case should be developed by next autumn which includes a full appraisal of the technologies available to divert sufficient biodegradable waste from landfill. Northamptonshire’s bid for private-finance initiative credits for a mechanical biological treatment plant was rejected in April because it did not demonstrate how the products produced by the MBT facilities would be dealt with. The cost of both prudential borrowing and PFI-funded contracts would be considered in the business case. Officers have discounted revising the previous bid for PFI credits, because the criteria is likely to be changed to exclude its plan for new management for household waste recycling centres, part of its bid to increase recycling from 30 to 50%. Developing the business case and tendering the contract is estimated to cost £1.7M over two years, with the bulk of this due to the cost of external advisers. Cllr Ben Smith, cabinet member for the environment, said the county had ‘no choice but to drastically reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, or be hit with potentially devastating fines’. The new work would allow the full costs – and implications for council taxpayers – of each potential option to be considered.