Dealing in filth



First published - Times Online 14th February 2007

Dorset’s New Earth Solutions is taking a bite out of the £3bn waste industry with an innovative approach to recycling that uses bacteria that eat household rubbish
Madeleine Acey

Rubbish is big business. Dorset-based New Earth Solutions has won £25 million of funding to roll out ten recycling plants across the country to deal with black bag waste – producing farm compost, biodiesel and saleable recyclable material.

The 18-person company, founded by Bill Riddle, spent four years developing a system that uses bacteria and fungi to break down mixed household rubbish. It is now projecting a combined turnover of £140 million to £150 million for its ten new plants – funded by Germany’s Norddeutsche Landesbank - while its first plant is projected to earn £2.5 million next year.

It signed contracts with Bournemouth, Kent, Essex and Bristol councils last year and says it aims to divert 1.2 million tonnes of waste from landfill by 2013.

Mr Riddle, who left school at 15 with no qualifications to work in his grandfather’s quarry, says that local authorities are scrambling to avoid putting residents’ rubbish into overflowing landfills.

EU regulations that come into force in 2010 mean that councils face strict limits on how much they can put into landfill sites, with a fine of £150 for every ton over that limit.

“Personally I think it’s probably the biggest business opportunity out there at the moment,” Mr Riddle says. “It’s a problem and it needs to be solved. I think the old methods are not appropriate for today – the old ‘stick it in a chimney and burn it’ approach.

“Waste is something we produce everyday, it’s mot affected by recession or weather. We’re going to see more and more green taxes.”

£3 billion business
Waste disposal is one of the biggest expenses for local authorities. Councils in England alone manage about 30 million tonnes a year, at a cost of £3 billion. Waste volume has been growing at around 3 per cent a year.

Government targets require local authorities to recycle 30 per cent of waste by 2010 – leading to a scramble to find companies to deal with household and business rubbish. From 30 October this year, EU rules also ban liquid waste from landfill sites and require other waste to be treated before it goes into the ground, the Environment Agency announced last week.

"It’s an ideal opportunity for waste producers and landfill operators to discuss how they need to adapt to these changes and take more responsibility for their waste,” says Liz Parkes, the agency’s head of waste.

Mr Riddle says that dealing with the rubbish mountain is an opportunity for small, nimble firms.

“Local authorities at first were a little cautious [of us], they were used to dealing with the big six waste companies. They are now all recognising – the councils, Defra and the National Audit Office - that the only way they are going to get these emerging technologies out there is to award the contracts to emerging companies. The big waste companies stick to what they know best. We can be a lot more flexible, work on shorter contracts change with the waste flow.”

Local Government Association chair Lord Bruce-Lockhart, however, warned companies in December that public sector contracts could be risky. Because of red tape and potential litigation few were keen to enter the market, he said.

And the government is concerned at the rising cost of waste management. The Times learnt last month that ministers were setting up a high-level review with industry and council leaders of the expected 4 per cent rise to council tax bills for this year.

Double bubble
Mr Riddle says that New Earth’s approach is a double business model. It not only takes waste off councils’ hands under contract, it sells the end products – sometimes back to the councils.

The company sells topsoil to golf courses, recycled plastic for use in tarmac and compost for use on non-food crops such as elephant grass and oil seed rape grown for biofuel. The compost cannot be used on food crops because of the risk of foot and mouth disease from meat waste.

Mr Riddle says he envisages selling the biodeisel back to the councils as they will want to be able to say that their rubbish lorries are fuelled by the waste they are carrying.

New Earth even siphons methane off the biodegrading bugs and sells that – building on one of Mr Riddle’s first businesses that took methane out of his grandfather’s old quarry once it had been filled-in as a waste site.

So how does New Earth Solutions turn your chicken bones, drink bottles and tea bags into these saleable products? “It’s all about keeping the bugs that are natural in the waste happy. They need the right temperature, the right moisture for the right length of time.

“We take mixed black bag waste, shred it to 50mm size - cans, the lot. We put it through our process for four-to-six weeks. The bacteria and fungus, they eat away.
“(You) get a compost plus your plastic, glass, metal and batteries all still in tact.
The bugs have eaten off all the food waste. We then split that off using magnetics.
“We end up with a small amount of material that we can’t do anything with. People like Tetrapak and McDonalds are looking at changing that.

“We see waste going totally recyclable or biodegradable. We can even take Ikea furniture!”

For more information on waste regulations, see www.environment-agency.gov.uk