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Municipal recycling takes on food waste

30th July 2007

Biffa has opened the doors on a new £3million in-vessel composting plant near Derby.

The new facility has been supported by a grant of £560,000 from WRAP. It has the capacity to convert 24,000 tonnes of kitchen waste into compost every year.

This waste will come from homes in East Staffordshire Borough Council, South Derbyshire District Council and Lichfield District Council, which have recently set up kitchen waste recycling collections for their residents.

Up to 20 per cent of the average household bin is kitchen waste. In fact UK homes produce around seven million tonnes of food waste every year.

Many Local Authorities currently landfill this waste as traditional windrow composting is unable to meet the demands of the Animal by-Products Regulations. These require food waste to be composted in an enclosed system that meets specified time and temperature requirements in order to destroy organisms that may be harmful to animal and public health.

In-vessel composting processes waste within large sealed concrete containers where air flow, moisture content and temperature can be monitored and controlled. This helps to create the best conditions for naturally occurring bugs to break the waste down into compost. The system was pioneered in the UK by Biffa, which built Britain's first facility on the Isle of Wight in 1998. This is still in operation and is contributing towards the Island's landfill diversion rate of 54%.

WRAP's Louise Hollingworth, Supply Programme Manager - Organics, said: "WRAP is delighted to be supporting the development of this impressive facility at Etwall. The in-vessel system will provide a significant increase in capacity for processing food waste in the Derbyshire area, enabling local authorities to expand the range of recyclables collected from households and producing a high quality soil conditioner."

Biffa composting manager, David Morgan said, "The process takes just six weeks to turn waste into a reusable soil conditioning compost that will be used within the landscaping sector. This will help three Local Authorities meet their statutory recycling targets by providing the means to recover waste that has until now been difficult to recycle."