Eco announced yesterday (April 17) that it has agreed a three-month deal to take unwanted products from the Sainsbury's branch at Ferndown, near Bournemouth.
 Eco Composting's sales and marketing director Andy Hill (centre) with Sainsbury's warehouse and stock control manager Gary Whardle and duty manager Kerry Sones |
Since the beginning of April, unwanted food has been composted to 70 degrees centigrade in Eco's in-vessel composting facility at Parley which is capable of processing 25,000 tonnes of organic waste a year.
The plant is compliant with the Animal By-Product Regulations which allow it to take meat-inclusive food.
Eco has also invested in an air sifting separator from technology firm, Premier Tech, which allows it to remove food packaging from material. The resulting compost will then be used to grow turf.
Andy Hill, Eco sales and marketing director, said: “This is an important project for use with one of the UK's best known companies. Biffa has already installed a special container for the food at the supermarket site and has started delivering, and we look forward to working with Sainsbury's in the coming weeks and months on this trial project.”
Expansion
According to Eco, Sainsbury's in Ferndown is the first store outside London to adopt the food waste recycling experiment, after a similar scheme was trialled in 21 stores in East and South East London.
Eco, which recorded a 3.5 million turnover last year (see letsrecycle.com story) hopes that the new scheme could lead to the involvement of more supermarkets and the expansion of their food waste recycling service across the country.
Mr Hill said: “We will put as much material as possible into this site and hope to develop other sites in the future.”
Tax
Sainsbury's explained that increasing landfill tax was spurring supermarkets to divert more and more waste from landfill.
James Mc Kechnie, recycling and resources manager at Sainsbury's, said: “A rising landfill tax and a growing expectation that we must get better at dealing with waste, means that we are just starting to see businesses such as Sainsbury's, link to local composting companies such as Eco.”
He added: “The food waste we haven't managed to sell or donate, we want to have composted, rather than sent to landfill.”
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