New anaerobic digestion facility for Dagenham
Artist's impression of the new facility
Food waste management company ReFood UK has been granted planning permission for a new anaerobic digestion plant in Dagenham. The facility is expected to process 160,000 tonnes of food waste a year that would otherwise go to landfill.
The decision to award planning consent was made by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and follows the recent suggestion by ReFood that the UK could save up to £17 billion by achieving zero food waste by 2020.
The new facility is expected to generate enough low-carbon biogas to supply 10,000 homes with energy, as well as liquid fertiliser. To be built at the London Sustainable Industries Park (LSIP) at Dagenham Dock, the £30 million development will create up to 60 new jobs, according to ReFood.
Philip Simpson, commercial director of ReFood, part of PDM Group, commented: “We are delighted to get the go ahead for this landmark plant, which will help to ensure that food waste arising in the London area can be transformed into renewable energy and valuable nutrients to go back onto the land.”
The right infrastructure
According to ReFood, which launched its ‘Vision 2020’ report on Monday (11 November), an estimated 14.8 million tonnes of food is still wasted annually throughout UK’s food supply chain. Around 40 per cent of this food waste ends up in landfill, where it produces ‘harmful methane that has a global warming potential (GWP) 21 times greater than carbon dioxide’. This, in turn, accounts for over 20 million tonnes of GHG emissions and 6.2 billion litres of water use.
Responding to the planning permission, Simpson added: “The decision comes in the same week that we launched the ‘Vision 2020: UK roadmap to achieve zero food waste to landfill by the end of the decade’, and having the right infrastructure in place to optimise the energy and nutritional value of food waste will have a major part to play in this ambition.
“There is clearly a desire within retail, the hospitality sector and householders to both prevent food waste and also deal with it more responsibly where it does arise. Indeed, we have been delighted by the positive response that the Vision 2020 ambition has already received.”
The Dagenham plant will be the company’s third food waste recycling site in the UK. There are plans to double the size of the first facility, which opened in Doncaster in 2011, and £20 million is being invested in a gas-to-grid plant in Widnes, Cheshire, due to open in 2014.
Read more about the work of ReFood or see the Vision 2020 Roadmap.
