The company has won planning permission to build a plant in a joint venture with Scottish specialist Energen Biogas. This will employ the anaerobic digestion technology that Shanks is already using to generate power in Holland and Canada.

Anaerobic digestion involves composting waste to produce a gas that can be burned to produce electricity or used as a fuel.

The partners will develop a facility on the North Lanarkshire site that they expect to be capable of generating up to 3MWhrs renewable energy from next summer.

This will be produced from 60,000 tonnes of organic waste, which will come from a range of sources including supermarkets, household and commercial kitchens and food processing plants. It will also use organic materials generated by existing Shanks operations.

Shanks said the process will also produce high quality fertiliser for use on agricultural land.

It claimed the site would provide a cost effective alternative to landfill and help local authorities and businesses increase their recycling rates.

The Scottish Government wants to minimise the quantities of waste sent to landfill and maximise recycling.

Environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth says producing renewable energy from biodegradable waste helps tackle climate change, instead of contributing to climate change through landfilling and incineration.

Formerly known as Shanks McKewan, Shanks was based in Glasgow until 1993. The company moved its headquarters to Buckinghamshire in that year following a shake-up which resulted in the sale of the group’s construction business to focus on waste management.

Shanks’s registered office is in Edinburgh.

Energen Biogas was awarded £2m by the Scottish Government last August towards a £7.5m project to use anaerobic digestion to generate heat from food and farming waste that would then be used to grow vegetables.

It was formed by Graeme Waddell, a former business director of the Rolls Royce Aero Repair and Overhaul unit which employs more than 1000 people in central Scotland.