Recycling goes underground in Ballinahown!

Recycling is going underground in Ballinahown in yet another major first for the award-winning village. A new state-of-art underground system of bring banks, the first of its kind in Ireland, has been installed in the picturesque area this week and was officially launched yesterday (Tuesday) by Westmeath County Manager Danny McLoughlin. Gone are the unsightly, unwieldly traditional bottle banks with the associated problems of flytipping, poor odour and vermin and instead, in their place are small, sleek bins above the ground and a deep receptacle below the ground encased in a pre-cast concrete. In an innovative use of computer technology, the system sends an email and text to the local authority, waste collector and local community to alert them when the bin is nearing capacity and needs collection. This backers believe will end ongoing problems with overflowing bring banks nationwide and waste being dumped beside the facilities . Athlone man Eamon Minagh is the sole agent in Ireland for Sulo, a German company which manufactures the innovative waste collection system. Speaking to the Westmeath Independent this week, he said he was delighted Ballinahown was the first to boast the progressive facility in the country. 'The whole plan is the aesthetics of the bottle bank is greatly improved,' Mr Minagh said. 'It"s neat, tidy, clean and vermin proof. Everything is underground. The receptacle for say, glass is just a metre above the ground so the elderly and young people can access them now.' He continued: 'It"s a straightforward concept, you lower a pre-cast concrete chamber in the ground and then you have the bottle bank inserted inside the pre-cast. It"s just then lifted out of the ground in a standard set-up like a normal bin when it"s full.' A partnership process, the underground bring bank system has been funded and supported by Sulo, MMKA Engineers and Architects, Ballinahown Community Development and Westmeath Community Development. It is situated adjacent to Ballinahown NS on a once derelict site developed by Ballinahown Community Development in recent months in to a landscaped parkland setting. John McGrath of MMKDA Engineers and Architects in Athlone who were the engineering consultants involved in the installation said they were very impressed with the technology, which is already in widespread use in Holland and Germany for general refuse collection. He said the big plus is the electronic eye which monitors the waste levels ensuring the spectre of overflowing bins is a thing of the past. 'It detects the level of waste within the bin so that the local authority, the community and the collector can keep a check on the levels. A text or email is sent when it is nearing capacity but also there is a website you can enter on a daily basis to monitor the levels in each individual bin.' In conjunction with the Ballinahown pilot project, Athlone IT is conducting research in to the economic and environmental benefits of the underground bins. The college will also examining the possible development of a tracking device along the lines of a satellite navigation system in a bid to make to lessen the amount of journeys taken by waste collectors to fill a truck and make the process more environmentally friendly. Mr McGrath added the system is extremely cost effective in comparison with the traditional models and could be replicated all over the country, a situation he predicted will create new jobs in the Midlands in the installation process. 'They are usable anywhere and they can actually be put in places where other bins can"t go like street corners or where site visibility would be an issue. Aesthetically, as you can see they fit in perfectly. They will come in flatpack and we"re going to assemble them in the Midlands. We are currently approaching the County Enterprise Board and Enterprise Ireland because we would envisage ten new jobs created within the next eight to twelve months and growing from there,' he commented. Meanwhile, Helen Conneely, Chairperson of Ballinahown Community Development hailed the development this week as a fantastic use of innovative, progressive technology in their ongoing Tidy Towns effort. 'One of the new areas within the Tidy Towns competition is waste minimisation. So instead, of just concentrating on the visual they have moved to encourage communities to do more sustainable elements. Last year we did our composting bins so this year we are addressing the waste side.' She said the traditional bottle or bring banks had posed major problems for the group with waste being left beside them on a regular basis necessitating the group having to clean up glass and other waste, a situation that ends with the new system. The group believes many other areas will follow their lead working in partnership with the agencies to develop this technology when they see the benefits. 'The fact that the bins are all underground, they are of higher volume than the traditional and only collected when they are actually full is a huge advancement. It was a partnership with everyone to get something totally new and it"s the first of its kind in place in Ireland,' she enthused.