RECYCLING & WASTE MANAGEMENT THE CASE FOR AD
What are you doing with your business’ food waste, asks Dan Purvis, Chief Operating Officer at Bio Collectors, whilst explaining why it might be time to consider anaerobic digestion.
Facilities managers have a multitude of challenges to juggle. Whilst many are aware of the issues around sustainability, one area that is often overlooked is food waste.
According to the UN Environment Programme’s Food Waste Index, more than 900m tonnes of food is thrown away every year. And, the recent Environment Bill - which sets out to transform the way we manage our waste – suddenly makes the issue of food waste considerably more pertinent to those working in facilities management.
On a personal level, we are all looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint to help reach global targets on climate change. However, on a professional scale, implementing green practices and improving the management of food waste in a company’s operations can be a daunting task.
How can facilities managers embrace green practices and improve food
waste management? Ideally, there would be zero waste, but in many workplace settings, this is an unrealistic target. First and foremost, FMs should implement green strategies to reduce food waste. When it comes to unavoidable waste, the most sustainable method of food waste disposal needs to be realised. But how?
“According to a study by WRAP, 99% of companies had a net positive financial return after investing in food waste management.”
Utilising micro-biological methods, such as anaerobic digestion (AD), is a good place to start. The AD process involves transporting food waste to a recycling plant, where any remaining packaging is removed before being pasteurised to kill any harmful bacteria or viruses. It is then fed to anaerobic digesters where microorganisms break the organic material down in a series of biological processes to generate methane gas.
Some of the methane is used in combined heat and power plants to generate electricity and heat to run the process and also export green electricity to the national grid, whilst the bulk of the methane is upgraded in quality and injected into the local gas grid where it feeds local homes and businesses as green biomethane. At Bio-collectors, the majority of our collection fleet is also powered by
52 | TOMORROW’S FM
biomethane generated from our recycling plant, providing ultra-low emission and renewably fuelled collections for our customers.
The environmental benefits of
unavoidable food waste By enabling every bit of unavoidable, separated food waste to be converted into valuable products such as electricity, biomethane and nutrient rich organic fertiliser for farmers, AD is the perfect example of the circular economy.
Conversely, when food waste is sent to landfill, it rots and emits methane to the atmosphere – a powerful greenhouse gas. Burning fossil fuels of course is another major source of greenhouse gas emissions, but luckily the AD process produces biomethane - a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. The other beneficial by-product - or bioresource - of the AD process is digestate, a nutrient rich organic fertiliser which can support the rural economy and cut agricultural emissions giving further carbon savings.
The business case for AD Aside from the clear environmental benefits, inefficiencies in managing food stock and the disposal of any catering food waste will have a financial impact on any business. These costs may be overlooked and buried in operational budgets, but it is something all facilities managers should address.
According to a study by WRAP, 99% of companies had a net positive financial return after investing in food waste management. The AD process does require businesses to segregate their food waste into separate bins, but yet, even with a minor investment into securing these separate bins, AD is a significantly cheaper method of disposal in comparison to landfill or a composting plant.
www.biocollectors.com/
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