Dump gas powers up to 500 homes in Cork city

Gas from a former dump is generating enough electricity to power up to 500 homes.

Cork City Council says it has become the first local authority in the country to acquire a special licence to generate electricity in its own right at the city’s former Kinsale Road landfill.

It has spent some €40m remediating the site which opened in 1963 and which accepted an estimated 3.5m tonnes of domestic waste until it ceased landfilling operations in 2009.