The scheme will run for a year using a 600,000 grant from Defra and may expand to 50,000 households next year if the success continues.
The digesters are made by London-based environmental company Green Cone and are 'planted' in gardens. They take food, including cooked and uncooked meat and break it down with a specially formulated accelerator powder, before dispersing it into the soil.
When used by a typical household, the device which has a lower basket base in the ground and a cone above the ground, only needs emptying every two years.
The digesters were originally sold to 1,900 households in West Sussex at 34.95. Residents found that they were saving around one large black sack of waste a week. The Defra money means digester can be given away for fee to residents.
The county has also been awarded 120,000 by the Waste and Resources Action programme to promote and monitor the giveaway from September.
Steve Waight, West Sussex cabinet member for strategic planning and environment said that “The 1,900 digesters in West Sussex are preventing 350 tonnes of waste a year from ending up in holes in the ground and that saves paying 14,000 each year in disposal costs.”
Expansion
The funding from Defra's Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund is for two years with the second year dependent on the success of the first 12 months. In total West Sussex could be granted 1.5 million from the government, over the two years.
Mr Waight added: “I am confident that we can make the first year of this innovative scheme a major success…and ultimately be able to give away as many as 50,000 digesters.”
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