Viridian Systems secure £100k R&D grant

Date: 24 November 2009

A WIRRAL-based landfill management systems specialist has secured a £100,000 grant to develop a new environmentally-friendly system for reduction of methane emissions from landfill sites.

Viridian Systems Ltd, the UK’s leading landfill service provider, will use the cash injection to finance the designs and technology, produce a working model and test its ground-breaking environmentally-friendly bio-filters.

North West Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors Mitchell Charlesworth advised Viridian on their application and provided cost projections to help secure the Northwest Development Agency funding.

Roger Dixon, Viridian Systems’ managing director, said: “Working with Environment Agency figures we realised that out of the 20,000 plus landfill sites known to exist in the UK the vast majority of the older sites do not have effective gas management systems.

“There are currently only a limited number of ways to deal with methane; use as a fuel source for power generation or flaring to reduce the amount of methane released to the atmosphere. It is in the later stages of the landfill life cycle that effective management of methane becomes problematic. We have been working hard to identify a more effective way to deal with the problem by using bio-filtration.

“The potential for this product is global as there is a real benefit to reducing harmful greenhouse emissions produced through the land filling process throughout the world. Without this grant funding we wouldn’t be able to move the product forward from the design stage.”

Viridian Systems was founded in 2001 and currently employs 45 staff at its premises on Wirral Business Centre, Dock Road, Birkenhead. It designs, fabricates and installs pneumatic pumping systems, landfill gas extraction systems and bio-filters for odour abatement.

The company, which is on target to hit £4 million turnover in 2009, supplies major landfill operators in the UK and Ireland, including Biffa, Veolia and WRG.

Greg Harris, a corporate finance and grant funding specialist at Mitchell Charlesworth, added: “Viridian Systems is on the brink of creating a brand new environmentally-friendly way of reducing harmful greenhouse emissions from landfill sites and should be commended for their efforts to turn this into a commercial project.

“Fortunately, we were able to help put together an application for grant funding which should see this exciting new technology revolutionise the industry, both in the UK and potentially around the world.”

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