As part of working towards a Carbon Neutral borough we need to ensure we get the most from our rubbish. Anaerobic digestion is one great method for using food waste to generate methane which can be used to produce electricity or power council vehicles. The process also produces lots of waste heat that could be used to heat homes and businesses.

Southwark Council introduced food waste collections late last year and currently it gets transported to Greenwich where it gets ‘bulked up’ onto big lorries to be taken to Sittingbourne/Isle of Sheppey to be composted. Much better than landfill but not extracting the most value in energy or money terms from this waste. It will gradually introduce biological composting by extracting moisture and incinerating the product to generate energy. But it’s not a very efficient way to extract the latent energy.

Council officers have told me we don’t have sufficient land at the new waste site and the contract with Veolia does allow it. But a 12,000 tonne plant in Switzerland with lots of offices and ancillary support occupies 3 acres and Southwark’s/Veolia new Integrated Waste Management Facility on the Old Kent Road occupies 14 acres. For the 5,000 tonnes of food waste Southwark is predicted to produce only 1 acre on the Old Kent Road IWMF would be required. I’m sure that could be found if we’re really committed as a community to fighting global warming.