Food waste recycling site helps local councils prepare for food waste collections

BioteCH4, has welcomed local authority officers to their Local Generation site in Cambridgeshire to raise awareness of the benefits of food waste recycling and help them prepare for mandatory food waste collections.

BioteCH4 uses anaerobic digestion (AD) to transform 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 Local Generation site processes around 134,000 tonnes of food waste each year, turning it into 68 GWh of power which is enough electricity to power 23,448 homes.

Under the new Simpler Recycling scheme, local authorities must implement kerbside food waste collections from residents by March 2026.

More than 10 million tonnes of food are thrown away each year, 60% of which comes from homes across the country. The carbon associated with this food is equivalent to that generated by one in five cars on UK roads.
The visit was organised with the Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources

Association (ADBA) to help local authorities better understand the environmental and energy benefits of processing food waste through AD and how the process can contribute to the UK’s goal of reaching net zero.

During the visit, discussions centred around the logistics of working with an AD operator, how to implement the process and how AD can be an ally to local authorities in establishing food waste collections.

Pamela Woolcock, group public sector lead at BioteCH4, said: “Sadly, millions of tonnes of food waste are thrown away each year, but the introduction of separate food waste collections can help to reduce this environmental burden.

"With the statutory deadline for introducing the service only 18 months away, we want to support all councils but especially those who might be finding this new and unknown territory daunting.

"We were delighted to host another group tour providing an opportunity to see first-hand the benefits that AD can bring them as an organisation and our society.”