Statistic
The UK produces 20 million tonnes of food waste each year.
The answers we provide
BiogenGreenfinch is the UK market leader in food waste anaerobic digestion – a system well suited to the needs of local authorities because it is versatile, green, cost effective and directed at achieving diversionary, recycling and Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS) targets.
Anaerobic digestion – AD for short – is a low carbon process in which micro-organisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen, in our case using the mesophilic process at temperatures of 35 to 40°C. As part of an integrated waste management system, AD significantly reduces the amount of waste going to landfill and, thereby, the harmful emission of landfill gas into the atmosphere.
- AD is also a source of renewable energy – the process produces a methane rich biogas that can be used to generate clean, green energy, replacing fossil fuels and helping to meet the Government’s Renewables Obligation. The residual material is a liquid, rich in nutrients, that is used as a biofertiliser.
- AD diverts biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) from landfill to local treatment, making it an ideal recycling process. By adopting this process each tonne of food waste recycled by anaerobic digestion as an alternative to landfill prevents between 0.5 and 1.0 tonne of CO2 entering the atmosphere.
- AD is a proven technology widely supported by Government and environmental organisations.
AD is cost comparable to other recycling technologies – indeed, a Eunomia report for WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) identified the technology as the most cost effective and environmentally sustainable way of diverting food waste from landfill.*
*Managing biowastes from households in the UK: Applying life-cycle thinking in the framework of cost-benefit analysis. A final report for WRAP, May 2007, produced by Eunomia Research & Consulting Ltd, Bristol.
About us
Find out all about us,
AD, and the impact
of food waste on
the environment.
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Resources
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about AD.
