SWACO Announces Shift Away From Landfilling

TEAM GEMINI TO DEVELOP GREEN ENERGY PARK USING FUEL CREATED FROM WASTE

The Board of Trustees ("Board") for the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio approved two land lease contracts today (Jan. 8, 2013) which serve as blueprints for new facilities that will significantly increase the area's recycling rates. The Board approved the agreements today with Team Gemini, LLC ("Gemini"), a sustainable project design and development company headquartered in Orlando, Florida.

The leases mark completion of contract negotiations between the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio ("SWACO") and Gemini after an eight-month selection process. SWACO Executive Director Ronald J. Mills also recently signed a contract where Gemini agrees to construct the recycling center and an industrial park that will be powered primarily by renewable energy.

Under details spelled out in the contract and land leases, Gemini agrees to lease 22-acres of SWACO land next to the Franklin County Sanitary Landfill to construct receiving facilities; Gemini will lease 343-acres of SWACO land north of State Route 665, which will house Gemini's green-energy industrial park. In both cases, Gemini agrees to pay SWACO $1,000 per acre per annum once the facilities are constructed.

The contract also requires Gemini to build at its expense a combined Receiving Facility, that will be owned and operated by SWACO, and a Material Recovery Facility ("MRF"), which will be owned and operated by Gemini. Once completed in 2014, Team Gemini agrees to recycle a minimum of 1,000 tons of waste a day that would otherwise be headed to the landfill and pay SWACO $4.81 per net ton for the usable material. This payment is in addition to normal tipping fees paid by haulers at the gate.

Under terms of the contract, SWACO can increase the amount of waste Gemini receives, leaving the potential for larger scale recycling.

Mills said the projects will not affect existing curbside recycling programs. About 60 percent of landfill waste comes from businesses.

"Curbside programs can continue to harvest the best of recyclables. This project is a way for us to increase recycling in what is left," Mills said. "This project is a tremendous step toward SWACO's goal of decreasing dependence on the landfill while providing SWACO financial stability where ratepayers ultimately benefit."

In addition, Gemini agrees to build a conveyor system that will bridge State Route 665 and transport the recyclables from the Material Recovery Facility to processing facilities located in the industrial park. The park is also expected to include greenhouses, a fish farm, an anaerobic digester and other production and industrial facilities. Under the design concept, waste from one center will help fuel another.

Team Gemini President, Douglas P. Haughn, who was born and raised in Grove City, Ohio, said that he is excited to come back home and be a part of such a project.

"It is our goal to both build and attract proven technologies that can recover and use the resources of the landfill while generating clean power," Haughn said. "The demand for renewable resources and energy are increasing. This Project creates access to those resources on a concentrated industrial scale and will be made available to the market place. "

"Some countries in Europe no longer have landfills, because they are recycling 100 percent of their waste Why can't we use those same technologies and have a similar goal?" Haughn further noted,"With SWACO and the involvement of industry experts and our team members, we can create a synergistic center of industry, powered completely by our waste stream, thus creating a Carbon Negative Footprint."

Both contracts offer 99-year leases, provided performance milestones are met.

The Ohio State University's Ohio BioProducts Innovation Center has expressed an interest in collaborating with Gemini.

"This agreement and related investment is transformational because of synergistic impacts of bringing together world class technologies into an eco-industrial park, " said Dennis Hall, Interim Director of the Ohio Bioproducts Innovation Center (OBIC) at OSU. "The utilization of existing waste streams, both bio-based and other recyclable materials allows for high value products to be created from what was previously regarded as garbage."

SWACO issued two Requests for Proposals ("RFP") in June and August 2012 dealing with development on SWACO land and use of waste. Team Gemini was selected from that RFP process.

SWACO's Chairman of the Board Bradley N. Frick said this project marks a historic milestone.

"This marks where waste transitions from a cost-center to a revenue generator," Frick said. "What we are doing here can not only set a trend in Ohio, but throughout the nation as well."

Additional information is available on SWACO's website at www.swaco.org