As long as the modern world runs on oil, there will be oil spills. They don’t just contaminate our soil and water, they can also emit greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. To break down the oil spill, the typical approach is to attack it with nasty chemicals. Either way, the ecosystem suffers. But Green Sword is a company from Enniskillen that has been eating up one oil spill after another at far less environmental, and financial, cost.
Green Sword has created a cleaning product that uses natural microorganisms to break down the tough hydrocarbon bonds that constitute oil and its products. By contrast, the normal approach to dealing with such contaminations involves chemicals – specifically, detergents or dispersants – that can themselves be bad for the environment, and often waste a lot of water in the process. Green Sword has been trialled successfully in various contaminated environments, including on machinery, and where oil has soaked into soil and water. Not only did it make the clean-up straightforward and eco-friendly, but the cost was also at least 40% lower than with traditional solutions.
Green Sword’s founder, David Moorhead, has been in biotech for years, seeking environmentally friendly ways to use microbes for the remediation of oil spills. The resulting cleaning product has since been scientifically validated and certified as unique. With this intellectual property, and having acquired manufacturing partners, Green Sword is well placed to scale-up production. That said, the company is also in a position that is somewhat unusual in the startup world, by having already been profitable with its product for a few years now.
Green Sword has been strengthened by financial support and innovation awards from bodies that include Invest NI and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. Now the company is one of the Top 12 running for INVENT 2014. But perhaps the greatest validation of the product’s efficacy has been in the form of demonstration. In both domestic and industrial contexts, Green Sword has been used successfully to wash away oil cleanly and cheaply. Now the oil industry, as well as the environmental and public sectors, are paying attention.
