BY MICHAEL BRESLIN

At a recent meeting of Fermanagh District Council, members approved some big-time capital expenditure for its recently-opened, state-of-the-art Integrated Waste Management Facility at Drummee on the Derrygonnelly Road out of Enniskillen.

One was for the construction of a 4,000 sq ft building for which the £800,000 contract was awarded to a Castlederg firm, and another, for mechanical biological treatment equipment capable of processing 30,000 tonnes of household and trade waste. This contract is worth £608,000 and was awarded to a firm in England that specialises in recycling services.

This week, Gerry Knox, the Council's Director of Technical Services, spoke to the 'Herald' about the impact that the Drummee operation will have on reducing the amount of waste presently going into landfill, resulting in lesser 'green' costs to the ratepayers.

"We have been looking at how we've been managing waste," Mr Knox explained, "and for the last three years we have come to the conclusion that the mechanical biological treatment (mbt) of waste is the way forward.

"We have carried out three pilot trials and that has reinforced our understanding of what is required and it has also given us a chance to go forward, and we know that it (mbt) is the way forward."

So, how does this system work?

Mr Knox explained that the residual waste (in the familiar green bins), not the dry recyclables, is brought into the central Drummee site where it goes through the mbt process, i.e. the waste is screened so that any further recyclables are taken out, for instance, plastics, and what's left goes into a huge drum, which rotates 'almost like a cement mixer'.

There are holes of varying size around the drum into which water is directed and this allows anything bio-degradable to break down.

"That breaks the waste down and separates it into 'fines', which is a compostible product," Mr Knox added. "That product goes into aerated containers and it becomes compost. For the moment, this has to be land-filled because we don't have the market for it.

"In other words, it will be land-filled for a short period, but we do expect to enter a market for it, to be sold as refuse-derived fuel (rdf). For it to become a product for the market, in multiple stores, there will have to be some other products introduced into it and mingled with it to give it a high calorific value, for example, timber," Mr Knox added.

But, despite the fact that the Council still has to landfill that waste, it will represent a reduction of anything between 25 and 30% of what presently goes into landfill in Fermanagh. And, it can't come soon enough.

"At the moment, we have a quota of 20,000 tonnes, but by 2020 we will only have a quota of 7,600 tonnes," he explained. "So, not only do we have to reduce the amount of waste going in, but also we have to cope with the reality that waste is growing at 1.5% a year. You can imagine for yourself: we're land filling 20,000 tonnes and by 2020 that will be considerable and, yet, we have to get it down to 7,500 tonnes."

If Fermanagh Council fail to meet that lower target, it will be fined £150 per tonne by way of landfill tax, so Gerry Knox, for one, cannot wait until the building housing the processing plant and the plant itself are up and running.

"It is very important to us to get this up and running," he said. "The building itself will mean, in effect, an acre of land roofed and, when it's built, it will house the entire processing equipment in order to produce refuse-derived fuel."