Tubridy comes face to face with ballas baby jaws

RTÉ presenter Ryan Tubridy came face to face with Baby Jaws on Friday night’s Late, Late Show.

The only one of its kind in the world, the Baby Jaws glass bottle crusher is being produced by a company in Balla – PEL Waste Reduction Equipment.

Owner and MD Tommy Griffith appeared with the product in Friday’s enterprise and innovation showcase, which featured four novel and ground-breaking new products developed and marketed by indigenous Irish companies.

Already in use in a number of pubs and hotels in Mayo, the crusher, which reduces bottle volume by 80 per cent, is also being used in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, The Dorchester and Ritz in London, and across the Radisson hotel group.

Reducing bottle size through crushing has many benefits for pubs, creating space behind the bar, lessening the time spent removing bottle bins, and freeing up storage space. There are four machines in the range, with Mega Jaws capable of crushing 680 bottles in 10 minutes

PEL, who employ 12 people in total – six of them in Balla, have customers across the UK and Europe and are in the process of establishing themselves on the US market by opening a sales base in Cleveland, Ohio. They are also engaging with a hotel group in Dubai to set up a recycling system there.

The company has finalised a contract with Tesco, who are now using their compactors in every store in Ireland, which allows them place the equivalent of three bins of waste into one, significantly cutting costs.