Covanta, the New Jersey-based waste firm which is building the €600 million Poolbeg waste incinerator in Dublin, has signed its first contract for the delivery of municipal solid waste to the plant.

The contract with Thorton's Recycling, one of the country's largest waste management firms, will deliver up to 25 per cent of the facility's capacity, Covanta said. Financial details were not disclosed.

Further supply contracts are expected to be announced for the facility in the coming months.

Work on the incinerator began last October, seven years after the facility was granted permission by An Bord Pleanála. The plant, which has a capacity to process 600,000 tonnes of municipal waste every year, is due to commence operations in the autumn of 2017.

The Poolbeg incinerator was first proposed in 1997 but while there was a brief period of site clearance work in late 2009, construction was continually delayed until last year due to a number of factors including funding issues, a failure to secure a foreshore licence, and complaints to the European Commission that the project was in breach of State aid rules.

Covanta is due to spend approximately €500 million developing the incinerator, while the four local authorities in Dublin have already spent approximately €100 million on the project, which is being developed as a public-private partnership (PPP).