ANYONE with any remaining doubts about the value of the recently introduced Food Waste Collection Scheme should take a look at the website of an amazing new processing plant at Bishop’s Cleeve near Cheltenham which now recovers the energy value from some 34,000 tonnes of food waste per annum.

The company, Andigestion (andigestion.co.uk), is one of the UK’s largest operators of gas-to-grid anaerobic digestion. The biogas produced naturally during the fermentation/degradation of the food waste is then purified to match natural gas, all of which is then fed into the national grid.

The most amazing aspect of this plant is that it operates without using any mains electricity from the grid, which means in addition to being extremely environment-friendly, it continues to work normally in the event of a power cut. This is achieved by using a special combined heat and power engine which converts a minimal quantity of the biogas produced to electricity, which provides all the power needed to run the plant. Heat from this engine is also used to keep the waste at a temperature which favours optimum digestion.

Finally, the gas, and any surplus electricity produced by the heat and power engine fed into the national grid, provide benefits from the government Feed-in Tariff and Renewable Heat Incentive schemes.

With the enormous volume of food that is wasted countrywide, in particular from the restaurant trade, one can only hope that more of these fantastic plants will be installed around the country. Well done, Andigestion!

Bob Kingsland

Brownshill