Green Success Stories sits down with Dermot McKeever, Founding Partner of Power From Waste, to learn more about how they are creating power from plastic and non-recyclable waste. Dermot is a climatologist and renewables expert specializing in PR and marketing. One of the three founding partners, Dermot brings essential start-up experience to the team and is particularly responsible for the PR, marketing and promotion of PFP and its projects.
Dermot, thank you for being here. Tell us a little bit about you and your background:
I worked in the FS industry for many years and moved in to renewables space about 5 years ago with a solar business. We launched PFP just over a year ago to eradicate non-recyclable waste from our planet. Our belief is that that power derived from waste is the perfect renewable, it addresses all 3 aspects of the energy trilemma. Supply security, cost control, and environmental enhancement.
What is a fun fact about you?
I read Climatology at university in the 1980’s when the climate threat was another ice age.
Why do you think climate change and sustainability is such an important topic today?
It’s more that the anthropogenic environmental damage that is amplifying climate change is not being addressed at source. We face a global environmental pandemic and we are still working at a snails pace to address it.We entered this space because the power from waste sector was led by the technology not the needs of the client nor indeed the planet. We are changing this through our projects.
What do you envision your industry looking like 10 years from now?
Sustainable supply chains will be the norm. The waste we will always produce will create the green power we will always need. Brown will become green. Fossil will become renewable. Our ambition is to work with our technology partners to reduce the cost and scale of projects so that every aspect of human activity can take the non-recyclable waste it produces and supply every business and community with the green power it needs.
What can the average person do to make a difference?
Reduce, the waste they produce and the power they consume. Recycle or reuse everything. Repurpose only what is left. All we ask is that everyone pauses before they buy something new and take an active decision to either stay with what they have or purchase something that has already been made. Lessen the impact you have on our planet.