Your leftovers might be doing a lot more than filling a bin.
In Cornwall, England, food scraps collected from households are being turned into electricity and fertiliser instead of being treated as ordinary rubbish. Council officials say helping residents better understand that process could persuade more households to separate food waste and help lift Cornwall’s recycling rate.
About 36,000 tonnes of food waste have been recycled, with the scraps sent to an anaerobic digestion plant in Holsworthy, Devon, according to the BBC.
Severn Trent Green Power operates the Holsworthy facility, where the collected waste is screened, mixed with water and placed in a digester that produces 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,” said Chris Lofts, the site manager.
Lofts said the material left at the end of the process is also used.
“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,” he said.
The site processes about 1,100 tonnes a week, enough to power 8,500 homes.
Cornwall Council found food made up 22 percent of black bag waste, and 43 percent of that food was still inside packaging.
Lofts said sending food waste to the plant delivers better results than incineration.
“The incinerators use the waste as a fuel , they burn it and heat up steam generators from that,” he said. “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 added.
Council leaders say participation could rise if more people understand what happens to food waste after collection, helping Cornwall work toward a recycling rate of about 65 percent by 2029.
“At the moment, we’re just over 50%. I’d like to get to 65% by 2029, but we can only do that if people in Cornwall help,” said councillor Loic Rich, Cornwall Council’s portfolio holder for environment and climate change.
“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,” Rich said.
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