Video: Waste-To-Energy Company Sets Eyes on Golden Triangle

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CLAY COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) — “It’s guaranteed to work.”

Ted McManus is CEO of Renewable Resource Solutions, a $90 Million project that’s privately funded and based out of Utah. Their goal: turning solid waste into sustainable fuel.

“It’s all about landfill avoidance so we would eliminate 400 tons of trash going into the landfill. We were introduced to the Clay County Board of Supervisors who reviewed our process and got pretty excited about taking waste from the golden triangle district into one of our projects,” said McManus.

McManus submitted the proposal to the Golden Triangle Regional Solid Waste Management Authority in hopes of creating a waste-to-energy center at the landfill in Clay County. But instead, executive leaders put a lid on their idea.

“After talking to the folks in there and their board level they decided they weren’t interested to do any project like that,” said McManus.

McManus says the project could span 25 years and lead to dozens of jobs. He also says they’re not asking for money from the state.

“We have projects under development in many places around the world. We’re working in Asia, the Philippines, 2 projects in Ohio. We are scheduled to break ground in Ohio in the next few months,” said McManus.

Executive leaders say they didn’t jump on board because, like many projects,  Renewable Resource Solution’s proposal did not appear economically viable.

“We’re contacted a lot about these types of projects or similar types of projects. There’s not an operational project of this type anywhere in the country.You can put $100 million in a facility and then it only runs for a year or 2 and then it shuts down. So you’ve got to make sure it’s going to work. It would be terrible to hire 75 people and then a year later have to lay them all off. That wouldn’t be good for us either.”

Still, McManus has high hopes for starting his company in the area.

“I’m anticipating visiting the community in the next week or so and I’ll sit down with the director at the Golden Triangle and have a discussion on what the rationale was and if they have any desire to revisit this issue. And if they do not, I guess we’ll just do something outside with private developers and/or concentrate our efforts in the other locations we’re doing business, like in Aberdeen or the superfund sites,” said McManus.