In the UK the government have put in place plans to see a separate food bin added in people’s homes dedicated to food waste. This bin would then be emptied and eventually end up at a local Anaerobic Digestion facility. The idea is to rescue food going to landfill and eventually de-composing and producing green house gases into the atmosphere.
What is Food Waste?
Food waste is quite simply the food that is not consumed or used by people, which is then commonly put into landfill. Many of us are guilty of buying food which then is forgotten, or we don’t get round to using in time. Once this is put into the waste bin, it then ends up going to landfill. Here the food is left to decompose. As it does this, the food decomposition process produces gases which pollute the atmosphere.
What are Green House Gases?
There are several gases that contribute directly to climate change. These are:
- Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
- Methane (CH4)
- Nitrous Oxide (N20)
- Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
- Perfluorocarbons (PFCs)
- Sulphur Hexafluoride (SF6)
- Nitrogen Trifluoride (NF3)
The main source of emissions is through Carbon Dioxide, which is emitted in the decomposition of food waste along with methane.
Effectively the gases we are producing are trapping the heat and energy from day to day use in the Earths atmosphere. This means that the planet is slowly warming up and global warming is becoming evermore a problem that needs to be dealt with.
Why Anaerobic Digestion?
Anaerobic Digestion is the perfect solution for dealing with food waste. Largely, this is due to the process being in an air tight tank, which means there are no green house gases emitted into the atmosphere.
The process takes the food waste, breaks it down and generates methane, which is a highly useful gas, as long as it isn’t emitted into the atmosphere. The Methane can then be injected back into the grid directly or it can be used to power CHP unit, which is effectively an engine. This then generates electricity that can be used to power the plant and any other operations or sold back to the grid.
The Negative to Separating Food Waste
The government are pushing this scheme as it challenges every household to really think about what they are throwing away unnecessarily. However, because of the introduction of another household waste bin it means there needs to be an extra service provided to collect the food waste from bins and this won’t be cheap.
References – https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/what-are-greenhouse-gases
