Energy firm signs €70m British deal

CLEAN energy firm Cynar has agreed a £60 million (€70m) deal with Sita UK to build Britain’s first fully operational plants to convert waste plastic into diesel fuel.

Portlaoise-based Cynar will build 10 plants in Britain, the first to be up and running in London by the end of 2011. The deal will create 100 jobs, 50 of them at Rockwell Automation in Cork.

Sita’s French-based parent company, Suez Environment, will watch the London plant closely with a view to European and even global expansion.

Suez has a €12 billion annual turnover, and employs 78,000 people globally.

The Portlaoise plant converts 3,000 tonnes of plastic per annum. Each British plant will convert 6,000 tonnes into diesel fuel usable in cars and trucks, as well as kerosene and gas by-products. The 10 plants will eventually convert 60,000 tonnes of mixed plastic waste per year.

Cynar chief executive, Michael Murray, said: “Sita’s partner, Suez, may start ordering for the rest of Europe. If they do, we will be seriously busy.

“A lot of people laughed when we started up in 2005. In terms of plastic to diesel conversion, we are unique in our commercial scale.

“The global competition is strong, but they are mostly scientists working at a small scale. You have to find backing to scale up. We have everything tested here in Portlaoise, where the plant is paying for itself. Our target is to make our plants 100% parasitic, which means that they would not import fuel from any third party utilities. We are halfway there.”

Each tonne of waste plastic is converted into 950 litres of usable fuel – 700 litres of usable diesel, 200 litres of kerosene used to power the plant’s generators, and the rest in usable gases. The emissions are close to nil, saving 4,000 tons of fossil fuels per annum.

Cynar was developed with a €7m capital investment, 90% of which came from Michael Murray and his family, with 10% support from Enterprise Ireland.

Suez Environment’s venture fund Blue Orange will help finance the scheme, together with Sita UK.

Sita UK’s chief executive, David Palmer-Jones, said: “This landmark agreement with Cynar will see us provide a commercial solution to the environmental challenge of treating waste plastic that cannot be recycled.”