Cornwall Council has said that understanding the benefits of recycling food waste could encourage more people to do it in the future. For the past two years, leftover food has been taken to an anaerobic digester, where it is converted into methane to generate electricity and produce fertiliser. The council said about 36,000 tonnes of food waste had been recycled since its new waste service was introduced. It said it hoped that increased participation, driven by understanding the benefits, would help it meet a target of recycling nearly two-thirds of Cornwall's waste by 2029.
Cornwall's food waste is taken to a digester in Holsworthy, Devon, operated by Severn Trent Green Power. Site manager Chris Lofts said the waste is first filtered, then water is added, and it is fed into a digester to create methane. "That methane we use as a fuel for engines that run generators and the generators produce electricity – and we then inject the electricity back into the National Grid," he explained. He said they tried to make sure nothing went to waste: "We use the heat as well to pasteurise the material on site for ancillary services that we do here. Even the by-product, the digestate that comes out – that's used as a fertiliser for farmers to fertilise the countryside and make all the flowers and crops grow."
Lofts said recycling food was better for the environment than throwing it in the bin with other waste to be taken to an incinerator. He said: "The incinerators use the waste as a fuel – they burn it and heat up steam generators from that. But there is a residual, the ash, which needs to go somewhere. It's an imperfect procedure – you're not getting as much electricity out of it as you would do if you're sending it to us here." He said the site could process about 1,100 tonnes of food waste a week, creating enough electricity to power 8,500 homes.
Councillor Loic Rich, Cornwall Council's portfolio holder for environment and climate change, said it was great to see residents engaging with recycling food. He said: "We're living on a planet that we've damaged with pollution and it's time now to take a bit more responsibility. It's just another thing we don't really want to be chucking away to get burnt in the incinerator when it can actually be reused and put to good use." The council said its analysis of household waste found that food accounted for 22% of black bag rubbish, and 43% of that was still in its packaging. Rich said he hoped that figure would decrease if people understood the benefits of recycling food waste.
Cornwall Residents Urged to Join Food Waste Recycling Effort