A COMPANY is set to lead the world in turning waste into energy, with the potential to create jobs and boost the local economy.

Bioflame, which makes eco-friendly waste burners and gasifiers, could play a key part in aiding the diversification of Yorkshire's farming industry.

Victor Buchanan set up the enterprise with Iain Dale, the former chairman of Dale Electric, which manufactures generator sets for the international market.

Bioflame, based in Pickering, North Yorkshire, has moved into production with several orders for its waste burners from Central America.

Mr Buchanan, who also owns The White Swan Hotel, in Pickering, said: "The current orders are from coffee mills in Costa Rica keen to stop using rainforest wood as a fuel."

The company's burners can use a wide range of waste, including straw, chicken litter, coppiced willow crops, and husks from coffee and rice crops.

In the future, Bioflame will be converting the energy into electricity, said Mr Buchanan.

The company's technical director and inventor of the burners, Matthias Grundmann, said "It is fantastic to be able to help the coffee producers get their environmental house in order.

"Not only do we put a stop to massive deforestation but our equipment replaces Victorian technology that otherwise fills the beautiful valleys of Costa Rica with acrid smoke."

The first burners, which measure six metres high by three metres square, to come off the production line have gone to two co-operatives in Costa Rica, one of which has 700 coffee farmers.

"Historically, they used rainforest wood to dry their coffee," said Mr Buchanan. "Not only are the forests retained, but the waste burners improve the quality of the coffee because it is dried to a constant temperature and, as a result, is of a high-quality, earning the farmers double the market price for their coffee.

"We convert the latent energy of the waste into heat.

"Of the 100 coffee co-operatives in Costa Rica, we expect 60 of them to be purchasing our equipment".

Farmers will be able to diversify their businesses by growing fuel and then using the generator to feed electricity into the national grid.

"Every megawatt of power we produce will save 7,910 tonnes of carbon dioxide gases being released into the atmosphere every year," said Mr Buchanan, who sees Bioflame having three major objectives: regeneration of the rural economy; farm diversification; and the creation of renewable energy