Council looks to generate £10m from our rubbish

Council looks to generate £10m from our rubbish

15 February 2012 - by DAVID TELFORD

DOWN Council’s landfill site has the potential to generate around £10m in revenue for ratepayers over the next 25 years, it has been claimed.

The cash is to be raised via two new energy developments at the Drumanakelly plant where 21,000 tonnes of waste are dumped each year.

Work on a project to extract methane gas trapped beneath thousands of tonnes of rubbish to power electricity generating turbines is expected to be up and running before the end of the year.

The electricity will be sold to the National Grid with the profits shared by the local authority and the private company which will extract the gas to generate the power.

There are also plans to locate a giant wind turbine at Drumanakelly, similar in size to ones already in place at an industrial estate in Bangor or adjacent to Antrim Area Hospital.

While there are initial plans to locate just one turbine at the dump, it has been suggested up to three could eventually be located there.

Down Council recently threw open the gates of the 50 acre dump to provide an insight into the huge operation to manage the waste generated across the district.

Two huge areas have already been filled with waste but are not longer visible as they have been capped with clay and soil and seeded with grass.

The council is currently dumping waste into a third hole at Drumanakelly which has the capacity to accommodate all the waste generated across the district over the next five years.

But it has to decide what to do with the last remaining phase — get ready for dumping or move to a new form of rubbish disposal, such as incineration.

Council chief executive Mr. John Dumigan has paid tribute to former councillors and officials for their vision in developing the ultra-modern landfill site.

He said 22 years after it opened, the dump is now in a position to generate money for ratepayers via the two renewable energy systems.

“If we were to erect three turbines at Drumanakelly which is a really windy location and the gas extraction scheme is as successful as we believe it will be, there’s the potential to generate an income of £10m over 25 years, he continued.

“That will be money which we can use to benefit the ratepayers of this district. In effect, we will be generating cash from waste and generating an income over a 25-year period.”

Mr. Dumigan said while huge costs were involved purchasing the site, developing and maintaining it, the council is moving to a position to actively claw some of that expense back and ensure ratepayers benefit from it.