New Windsor –Taking a cue from the successful and widely practiced European models of garbage digestion BioHiTech Renewables sees a win win for the company, the environment and property at Stewart airport property.

Appearing before the New Windsor planning board last week BioHiTech's spokesman and a company principal gave a detailed summary of the garbage to dollars eco-friendly business that's popular in Europe where the necessity of smart use of resources – including garbage – has taken root.

“We appreciate there are many concerns about the solid waste industry,” said BioHiTech spokesman Dennis Soriano, a veteran official of the new wave of garbage to energy uses popular in Europe where space is tight for growth.

“The thing that was appealing to us is the fact that this is a proven technology and has been very successful in Europe.” He gave the example of a baby milk powder processing plant operating near a European plant using the technology his company wants to bring to New Windsor.

“This is a proven technology that has been very successfully operating in Europe.”

“We landfill far too much material and there other alternatives to burying material in the ground and this technology is certainly one of those at the forefront of being able to divert garbage from landfills.”

“What I tried to get across is this is a very sophisticated technology that deals head-on with issues that concern authorities and the general public.”

One question from the planning board was how will BioHiTech's trucks handle the traffic at Stewart.

“I understand that,” said Soriano. “Certainly Route 207 is a busy road but I don't think that we will substantially impact traffic on 207. The bulk of our traffic will be route trucks, the kind that go through people's neighborhoods every day.”

As for business potential, Soriano said “we're in a good geographical area and there is certainly a good feed stock in municipal waste.”

But he emphasized that BioHiTech the company is in in the vanguard of smart waste disposal because it's the right thing to do for the environment and also is profitable for both the company and good for New Windsor.

“So, we feel pretty good about this,” said Soriano.

“The thing that was appealing to us is that it is a proven technology and that it has a been very successful. “We are a public corporation so we think we have a responsibility to do things differently.”

“All that being said,” said Soriano, “there is always caution by governing bodies...and in the general population when they hear that you're going to have a facility regardless of the technology that's going to be receiving and reprocessing solid waste.'

“So, we appreciate that there are concerns and opinions about how we handle these things.”

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