Food waste recycling sites open its doors to help local councils prepare for food waste collections
BioteCH4 has welcomed councillors and local authority staff to two of their sites to raise awareness of the benefits of food waste recycling and help them prepare for food waste collections.
BioteCH4 uses Anaerobic Digestion (AD) to turn food waste into energy which then goes back into the national grid. The process also produces biofertiliser, a nutrient-rich organic material used to fertilise farmland.
The visits to the Local Generation site near Cambridge and the Changing Waste site in Howden, Yorkshire were organised with the Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association (ADBA) and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to help local authorities to better understand the environmental and energy benefits of processing food wastes through AD.
The event was held in anticipation of DEFRA announcing the deadline for all local authorities to implement food waste collection services.
During the visits, councillors and officers toured the sites to see how an AD plant works and spoke to staff about topics such as what vehicle or bin should be used to collect food waste and how the gas is injected back into the grid.
Pamela Woolcock, Group Public Sector Lead at BioteCH4, said: “Millions of tonnes of food waste are thrown away each year and food waste collections are an important part of how we deal with this environmental burden. However, for some councils, this service will be new and there are some specific challenges which need to be addressed. We were delighted to welcome local authority councillors and officers to see first-hand both the challenges that need to be addressed and importantly the benefits that AD can bring to them as an organisation and our society.”
The Changing Waste site processes around 104k tonnes of food waste each year, turning it into 115 GWh of power which is enough electricity to power 39,655 homes. The Local Generation site processes around 134k tonnes of waste of food waste each year, turning it into 68 GWh of power which is enough electricity to power 23,448 homes.*
Jo Goad, Policy Analyst, of ADBA, said: “AD is the most sustainable process for recycling food waste and can provide a strategic solution to the energy crisis and the escalating cost of fertiliser. Additionally, at its full potential, the AD and biogas industry could also reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by six per cent.
“As we wait for confirmation of when local councils and businesses must implement food waste collections, we felt it was important to invite local authorities to food waste recycling sites where they could see the benefits first-hand.”
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