He added: “This is the first large-scale facility within the M25.We realised this type of technology would be well-suited to the market as it has a number of strong unique selling points.”
The facility, which has a capacity of 70,000 tonnes-a-year, is set to treat food waste using a new process called ATAD – Autothermal Thermophilic Aerobic Digestion, which converts the material into a digestate suitable for fertilising crops.
The food is expected to come from commercial sources including supermarkets, food production and the hospitality sector within London. It will be processed within 72 hours to produce a material which Vertal claims should be able to receive PAS 100 accreditation.
Mr Mekitarian described the process as “super-charged liquid staged digestion”. First of all, the feedstock is picked visually to check for large contaminants then it goes through specialist machinery to remove hidden metals and plastics. After this, the waste is pumped into a holding tank before being macerated into a slurry and pumped through to the aerobic digesters.
It then goes thorugh mesophillic reaction tanks where bacteria in the waste heats up to 25
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