According to Dr Liz Goodwin, an articlepublished in the newspaper entitled Slopbuckets farce: UK-wide scheme to turn leftovers into energy only creates enough power for one small townis misleading and plays down the environmental and economic benefits of the food waste treatment technology.
The Daily Mail story said that food waste collections using ‘slop-buckets’ had been imposed upon millions of families so that the material could be used to generate energy through anaerobic digestion (AD). But, it said that only 46 AD plants are currently in operation, producing 60MW of electricity enough to power 40,000 homes.
The Mail also pointed to trials launched by WRAP earlier this week to establish new markets for digestate (see letsrecycle.com story) as evidence that the government did not know what to do with the waste once collected.
Doretta Cox of the Campaign for Weekly Waste Collections told the paper: They decided everyone would have to have slopbuckets, but they didnt look at the market.
It is clear that all the schemes for collecting separate food waste defy common sense. It is expensive to collect this stuff and then you have to transport it for many miles before you can get to an anaerobic digestion plant. You have to question the sense in that. They are desperate to find a use for it.
Success
Commenting on the story, Dr Goodwin said it was important to celebrate the success story of AD.
She said: Yesterdays story in the Daily Mail Slop-buckets farce gives a misleading view of the rapidly growing role which food waste and anaerobic digestion (AD) are playing in delivering economic and environmental benefits to the UK.
Dr Goodwin said there were still 15 million tonnes of food waste produced in the UK every year which in the past were sent to landfill but now could be turned in renewable energy and a cheap alternative to fertiliser.
She added that the growth of AD in the UK over the past five years had been phenomenal with just one plant processing food waste in 2005.
She said: The Mail story said that the energy created can only supply power for 40,000 homes. Frankly, I, and many others, think this is remarkable and should be celebrated.
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