'Waste In, Energy Out' is Motto For Bridgewater Business

Bridgewater resident Mike Gillespie was looking for a way to dispose of waste and generate power all at the same time—and now he is about ready to commercialize the system he came up with.

“It all started when my father, Chris, and I discussed the problems of waste disposal and power generation, and the lack of an industry solution,” he said.

That conundrum became Sustainable Waste Power Systems, a start-up company that began in 2008 with everything related to his Garbage-In, Power-Out Technology.

“From that time, we derived our gasification process, which truly presents a paradigm shift in the way waste is destroyed, providing a great leap in efficiency compared to our existing competitors in the field,” Gillespie said.

Basically, Gillespie said, waste is captured and converted to be used as a clean synthetic fuel for generating electricity and heat.

“Our process produces no harmful emissions or effluents, and is safe, reliable and economically viable,” he said.

Gillespie said they have spent the past year constructing, testing and modifying the prototype, and are now prepared to commercialize it.

That process, Gillespie said, will be a two-stage approach.

First, Gillespie said, they are trying to manufacture a fairly small system that will fit inside a 40-foot long shipping container, while also destroying up to three tons of waste per day.

“[It is] reducing it to ash, clean water and usable heat,” he said. “Targets in this market include medical waste, agricultural waste and other hard-to-handle wastes, such as battlefield waste for the military and oil spill cleanup waste.”

The second plan, Gillespie said, is to increase the scale of the system to be used for municipal waste, and allow local towns to provide clean, local power generation and waste destruction.

“These plants would consume around 50 tons per day, the equivalent of five to six garbage trucks, and generate over 3 megawatts of power directly for use by the local electrical grid,” he said. “This plant would support over 20,000 residents and power about 1,850 homes, as well as reduce truck traffic and the associated emissions, noise and fuel consumption of garbage trucks.”

Gillespie said he works out of his home in Bridgewater, but the business itself is headquartered in Connecticut. He said they have people in Connecticut, New Jersey, Manhattan, the Bronx and Pennsylvania working over the Internet to achieve the goal.

“I think that we represent the modern style of decentralized working relationships, leveraging technology to its fullest potential,” he said.

For more information on the technology, visit the website at GIPOplant.com. Business interested in using the system should contact Gillespie directly at Mike. Gillespie@GIPOPlant.com.