bemoreeco

Food Waste Recycling  - Animal By-Products & Waste Food

BBC’s Working Lunch’s Ben Shore visits an energy plant in Widnes that’s powered by waste food. Commercial director Philip Simpson explains how it works.

Follow this link the watch the report

How it works

We are all becoming increasingly aware of the need to reduce our environmental impact by finding safe alternative uses for food products that are past their sell-by dates, or deemed no longer saleable rather than simply sending them to landfill. Many blue chip organisations have committed to eliminating the landfilling of their food wastes.

In addition to the environmental considerations, the landfilling of food wastes is becoming increasingly expensive; landfill tax will is rising by £8 per tonne each year.

PDM Group provides a unique ‘one-stop shop’ collection and recycling service for all waste food products (including products in packaging and tins) with complete coverage across the UK.  The collected products go through an innovative process which separates the food material from any packaging. The food products are either then re-processed to recover valuable materials that are used in the manufacture of bio-fuels, or are used as a ‘neat’ bio-fuel for direct biomass combustion.

Bio-fuel produced from the waste food is used in PDM Group’s own power plants to generate renewable electricity, power which qualifies for ‘Renewable Obligation Certificates’ (ROCs) under the Government’s Renewable Energy legislation.

The liquid fat recovered from the food waste is used as a feedstock for the production of biodiesel or as a renewable energy fuel. The service is also able to handle food wastes from restaurants, hotels, hospitals and fast-food outlets.

Energy Generation Background

PDM Group was the first company in the world to develop a dedicated, commercial combustion process to use animal by-products as a renewable fuel source. The technology to do this involved many year’s research by PDM Group. A pilot plant was commissioned at PDM Group’s Nuneaton site in 1997.

Based on the information and expertise gathered from the pilot plant, in 2000 PDM Group opened the world’s first commercial meat and bonemeal (MBM) combustion plant at Widnes, Cheshire. Today, PDM Group’s bubbling fluidised bed (BFB) combined heat and power (CHP) combustion technology provides the benchmark for the disposal of meat industry residues.