Christmas dinner plate scrapings and other festive leftovers collected by Amey on the Isle of Wight will be powering people’s homes this year, thanks to green energy made at a facility in Basingstoke.
British households’ Christmas indulgence sees around 230,000 tonnes of extra food waste generated, the equivalent weight of 38 million turkeys, and across the country most of this ends up rotting in landfill.
However, food waste from homes on the Island – around 3,500 tonnes a year’s worth (in itself the equivalent of approximately 600,000 turkeys) – is collected by Amey and is sent to the Basingstoke anaerobic digestion (AD) plant run by Tamar Energy. There it is broken down by special enzymes in airtight conditions (anaerobically) and the biogas given off is captured and used to make as much as 1.5MW of green electricity that is put into the national grid to power around 3,000 homes.
If the same happened across the entire country, the extra food waste over the festive period could make enough energy to light up 2.5 million Christmas trees or cook an additional 1.3 million Christmas dinners, Tamar Energy has calculated.
Councillor Luisa Hillard, Isle of Wight Council Executive member with responsibility for sustainability, says:
“My family loves cooking and eating, especially at Christmas! However, food costs money, so it makes sense not to waste it. Any leftovers that we can’t save for another meal, or give to the dog, are put in the food caddy for collection.
“This also helps prevent mess because putting food in your black bag can encourage animals or birds to rip open the sacks and spread the contents across the pavement.
“Every item of food waste collected on the kerbside from households goes towards generating electricity and producing biofertiliser. So, although you may not think small scraps of food waste will make a difference, when you add these to all the other scraps collected across the Island, it soon adds up to a large amount to be recycled.”
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Dean Hislop, chief executive of Tamar Energy, said:
“Reducing the amount of food we waste is something everyone can tackle this Christmas, as the increase at this time of year is quite frightening. While I wish everyone a good holiday, I also hope we’ll all reduce, reuse and recycle more.
“Not everyone has access to a food recycling service, but where we do, it is wrong that unavoidable food waste is buried or burnt when it could be recycled into green energy and biofertiliser.”
“Unavoidable leftovers such as plate scrapings are a massive untapped source of homegrown energy. By putting this in the food recycling caddy, the Isle of Wight is doing its bit and together we can help light lots of homes over the festive period.”
As part of their campaign to raise awareness of the reduce, reuse, recycle message this festive period, Tamar Energy are inviting people to share their best leftover recipes on Twitter, using the hashtag #SeasonsEatings.
