Business North November 2022

| 13 Ecogas: Food Waste Processing Facility The state-of-the-art plant, located at Reporoa in the central North Island, will turn 75,000 tonnes of organic waste into renewable clean energy and biofertiliser. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT 73 Corbe� Road, Bell Block New Plymouth 4312 As a key supplier to the new Ecogas organics processing facility at Reporoa, Flexi Tanks New Zealand is playing a signi icant role in the development of this country’s irst large-scale waste-tobioenergy plant. The $30million facility is one of the most advanced clean bioenergy plants in the world. Once fully up and running, it will convert 75,000 tonnes of organic waste collected throughout the North Island each year into biogas, biofertiliser and electricity for commercial applications. Being involved in a state-of-the-art, commercial scale anaerobic digestion facility such as this is a irst for Flexi Tanks in the New Zealand market. Four Flexi Tanks, each with a capacity of 500,000 litres, have been installed at Reporoa. “We’re very excited to be a part of this groundbreaking project,” says Flexi Tanks NZ General Manager Andre Meier, who led the on-site installation of Flexi Tanks at Reporoa. “Our tanks will be used to store water that can then be fed into the anaerobic digester, as well as to store water for ire safety purposes. As well, Flexi Tanks are needed on this project to store liquid bio-fertiliser, produced out of the process, that will be used to fertilize local farmland.” Flexi Tanks are a tried-and-true solution for liquid storage, having been expertly Optimising liquid storage with Flexi Tanks NZ made in France since 1959. Andre’s father Anton and partner Jacky van der Poel have operated as the NZ distributor of Flexi Tanks for eight years, with Andre joining his mechanical expertise to the business several years ago. Based in Cambridge, they supply quality bladder tanks for water storage (in agricultural, horticultural and domestic settings) and for dairy farm e luent storage. Their tanks also have industrial applications in ire ighting and for storing liquid fertilisers and leachates. Each Flexi Tank is manufactured from multi-layered, rip-stop technical fabric with a high tensile strength, (450kg per 5cm). Flexi Tanks are fast and easy to install and come with a 10-year manufacturer’s warranty. All that’s needed for installation is a level pad or platform. Tanks are then rolled out, connected up and illed. “Our tanks are transported in a compact form. That’s an important advantage in an emergency where a council or local project may need to urgently install a tank, because they are so easy to manoeuvre and set up. “It only takes three to four hours to install a Flexi Tank. It’s the most economical and reliable solution for storing between 50,000 litres and two million litres of water, leachate or e luent.”

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