Waste management firm Greenstar agrees €40m bio-waste deal

Ireland’s largest integrated waste management company Greenstar is to partner with bio-treatment technology company Bedminster International to develop bio-waste infrastructure throughout Ireland.

Bedminster International is controlled by Oyster Capital.

The €40m project will run over three years and will aim to maximise the diversion of biodegradable municipal waste from landfill. The proposed facilities, which are subject to site selection, planning and licensing, will service specific waste regions.

Ireland’s proposed national biowaste strategy, as laid out in the Government’s 1998 policy document Changing our Ways, requires the diversion of 50% of household waste and 65% of biodegradable municipal waste from landfill by the year 2013.

The policy requires that alternative waste management methods are found to treat about 300,000 tonnes of biodegradable municipal waste per annum thereafter.

The patented Bedminster bio-energy technology uses a biological process to convert the organic material by way of a digesting system to a clean bio-fuel, which the company says has the same energy value as peat.

Earlier this year, Bedminster, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bill McCabe-chaired Oyster Capital, signed a $200m (€170.9m), 25-year deal in New York for the treatment of 400 tonnes of organic waste per day with Tully Environmental.