WASTE management company RiverRidge is to begin the next stage of an innovative vehicle fuel synthesising project in Belfast which will convert elements of household black bin waste into compressed biogas that can then be used to operate compressed natural gas vehicle engines.
It represents an investment of £25 million, with construction expected to commence in subject to being ratified by RiverRidge’s board and investors this summer.
And once constructed, the complete treatment process will have the capacity to convert 90,000 metric tonnes of waste a year into over six million kilograms of compressed biogas - enough to fuel 270 articulated vehicles for a year.
The company has already invested £3 million by building and commissioning the first stage of this latest project to extract and clean elements of biomass from household black bin waste.
It uses advanced biological treatment technologies to extract methane from elements of household black bin waste that currently are either sent to landfill or exported as a feedstock in inefficient waste to energy facilities outside of the UK.
Trials conducted by RiverRidge using the proposed technology have been ongoing for the last 12 months and have now proved its capacity to generate both a renewable transport fuel, as well as a high-quality soil enricher.
RiverRidge also invested £100 million in the Full Circle Generation (FCG) large-scale waste to energy facility in Belfast’s Harbour Estate, which processed over 100,000 tonnes of waste in its first year of operation.
It generates electricity from household waste by extracting gasses from treated waste for combustion, before passing the steam through a traditional thermal process.
RiverRidge chief executive Brett Ross said: “The group, along with Full Circle Generation, currently has the infrastructure in place to manage over 80 per cent of Northern Ireland’s black bin waste tonnages each year.
“This project significantly improves the quality of outcomes from our infrastructure by diverting further tonnages away from landfill into products which have far less of an adverse impact on our environment.”
RiverRidge employs nearly 300 people and currently manages black bin waste volumes for a number of local authorities.
