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Millennium Park

Materials Recovery Facility (MRF)

Greenstar’s Millennium Park Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) is one of the largest automated recycling facilities in Ireland and the UK and was officially opened on Monday, October 16th by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr. Dick Roche, TD.

Greenstar has invested over €25 million in developing the Millennium Park MRF, which will recover over 70% of the Commercial & Industrial (C&I;) waste and more than 85% of the Construction & Demolition (C&D;) waste it processes - thus diverting 180,000 tonnes away from landfill every year. C&I; and C&D; waste includes waste generated by businesses, factories, industrial plants and the building sector.

Application of leading-edge technology at the facility includes -

	an automated process - increasing the quality of the recyclable outputs and the percentage of the material diverted from disposal
	air/density separation technology - permitting more effective recovery and a higher quality of material to be produced at the end of the process.

The facility meets all EPA requirements and will be operated to the highest standards of international and environmental best practice.

The Dublin region currently produces circa 670,000 tonnes of commercial waste per year - and, according to the Dublin Region’s Waste Management Plan, adopted in 2006 - only 35% of this waste stream is reclaimed rather than going to landfill or being exported for further treatment. Millennium Park is licensed to handle 220,000 tonnes of C&I; and C&D; waste per annum - but has the capacity to manage 400,000 tpa. Using leading-edge automated technology to recover the waste materials allows recovery rates of over 70%. Most of this material consists of plastics, paper, timber (wood), metals and stone.

Interesting Facts

Timber -

Millennium Park is expected to recover 20% timber = 44,000 tpa
Recycling 1 tonne of Timber saves 8½ trees from being cut down
One tree can filter up to 30kgs of pollutants from the air each year
Recycling 44,000 tpa timber would save 374,000 trees from being cut down
Saving 374,000 trees from destruction, prevents 10,200 tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere.

Ferrous Metal -

Millennium Park is expected to recover 4% ferrous metal = 8,800 tpa
1.14 tonnes iron ore, 450kgs coal and 18kgs limestone
Recycling 8,800 tpa metal would save 10,000 tonnes iron ore, 4,000 tonnes coal and 160 tonnes limestone .

EU Legislation is driving Ireland’s - and thus, Dublin’s - waste diversion targets. The opening of Millennium Park will significantly affect the volume of commercial waste that can be diverted from landfill in the Dublin region. As well as helping the region meet the recycling targets set out in the Waste Management Plan, Millennium Park is also an important infrastructural asset and a response to the Plan’s call for investment by the private sector in material recycling facilities. Although the investment in the Millennium Park MRF is a major development for Greenstar and a significant contribution to Ireland’s waste infrastructure, it is only a small part of the overall solution needed to solve Ireland’s over-reliance on disposal.

The Forfas Waste Benchmark Report (Click Here) - released in June 2006 - clearly shows that there has been limited progress in addressing Ireland's waste infrastructure deficit as required by the last National Development Plan 1999-2006. If Ireland is to develop comprehensive capacity to treat different waste types appropriately and in an environmentally sustainable manner, it is essential that more facilities such as the Millennium Park MRF are invested in to provide Dublin and the country with much needed waste management infrastructure.

Millennium Park brings Greenstar’s total investment in the waste management sector in the last six years to €240 million. This is the largest investment to-date of any private company in this sector in addressing Ireland’s critical lack of waste infrastructure. The opening of Millennium Park demonstrates Greenstar’s commitment to the ongoing development of a modern Irish waste management system. For an overview of Greenstar's facilities in Ireland - Click Here

Greenstar is Ireland’s leading integrated waste management company and provides services and infrastructure at each level of the waste hierarchy. The company’s business development spans a range of services that includes - education, research, bio-waste, recycling, materials recovery, collection and transfer and the development of facilities for the safe disposal of waste that cannot be reduced, reused, recycled, recovered or treated in any other way.

In addition, the company is committed to working in partnership with its customers, its employees, industry and the public sector to deliver the change necessary to meet EU legislative requirements in a legal and professional manner.