Unlocking Food Waste Solutions for local Councils and Businesses.
A new era of waste management is upon us with the introduction of mandatory separate food waste collections across England. From 2023, the food waste hierarchy will be made legally binding, requiring all food waste that cannot be redistributed to be recycled – AD is found as the most favourable recycling route. Each year, food waste sent to landfill releases emissions equal to the annual emissions of 950,000 cars.
ADBA’s online Report Launch on April 27 “Food waste recycling: anaerobic digestion, the net zero lever for local authorities.” has demonstrated how AD maximises the value of this resource. With a foreword by Peter Sharpe, our CEO, the report outlined how AD is the key to unlocking benefits for local authorities and businesses in the transition to net zero by assisting in:
- Meeting Carbon reduction targets
- Meeting Recycling targets
- Cost savings
- Being Nature positive
The UK produces an estimated 9.5 million tonnes of food waste annually – 69% of this comes from households. Currently just 20% of food waste in the UK is recycled. By processing through AD, the average local authority could save between £1.4 and £1.8m annually.
With England failing to achieve its recycling targets in 2020, an additional 4 million tonnes of food waste would have to be diverted to AD every year for the UK to achieve its recycling target for municipal household waste under the Circular Economy Package.
On the release of the report, David McKee, our Chief Technical Officer of Bio Capital has said:
“Anaerobic Digestion of food waste holds the key to unlock the path to help us meet Net Zero targets, via renewable electricity, cleaner transport fuel, decarbonising the gas grid, replenishing our soil health and renewable CO2. The potential of AD can no longer be overlooked and I call on the support of our Local Authorities and businesses to use AD as the key to unlocking our sustainable future.”
At Bio Capital, our purpose is for our expertise to make a real contribution to the UK’s transition to Net Zero. As a Group, we have a clear vision to achieve this and through innovative practices, alongside our customers, we will continue to unlock a stronger circular economy.
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In honour of ‘Green Infrastructure Week’ (25-29 April) our ‘AD Holds the Key’ series shone a spotlight on exactly how we are unlocking a better way forward across the UK, for energy, agriculture, transport, waste management and more. Team members across our sites were proudly involved in our LinkedIn posts…. check it out here if you missed our week of posts > https://www.linkedin.com/company/bio-capital-ad/
