Bedminster invests €40m in British waste plant

Waste-treatement venture Bedminster is joining forces with a British company to invest €40 million in a facility in Britain.

The company has enlisted local operator Cory Environmental to develop a waste-treatment facility at Lyme and Woods, close to Haydock in Merseyside.

Cory last month applied to the Merseyside local authority for planning permission to build the facility, which will use Bedminster's technology to process waste. It already operates a landfill close to the site. It is understood that the plant will be built at a cost of €40 million.

Bedminster's owner is Oyster Capital, an investment fund whose majority shareholder is one-time technology entrepreneur, Bill McCabe.

Cory Environmental is one of the biggest players in the British market. It processes more than 3.5 million tonnes of waste a year and employs more than 1,000 people. It handles 20 per cent of all waste produced in London alone and operates out of more than 30 locations.

Bedminster's technology processes biodegradable waste and converts it into compost or fuel. It can be scaled to suit the requirements of each market.

This will be the first time that the system will be used in Britain, although it is already used in 12 treatment facilities around the world. The locations include the US, Japan and Australia.

Bedminster said yesterday that work on the Merseyside facility would begin in the middle of this year and should be operating by the end of 2008.

Under an EU ruling, local authorities in Britain must divert at least 70 per cent of their biodegradable waste away from landfill or face heavy fines.

Cory Environmental's chief executive, Malcolm Ward, said yesterday that the Bedminster system was one of the few that ensured local authorities complied with this. "We have a significant opportunity to develop a sustainable solution that will assist the UK government and local authorities to address their EU waste obligations."

Pearse O'Kane, Bedminster's chief executive, said: "This development represents a major breakthrough in our objective to find an integral solution to the ever-increasing UK waste problem."