Garden and Food Waste Processing

Compost is 100% natural

Composting, whether in a bin in the corner of a domestic garden, or within a purpose-built facility, is a managed process, just like cooking with a recipe. And a very simple recipe.

In controlled, managed conditions, raw BIODEGRADABLE materials are broken down by micro-organisms which results in a process in which the ingredients quite literally cook themselves into rapid decay.

Food Waste

The UK throws away approximately 11.8 million tonnes of food waste every year and much of this goes into landfills where it produces methane, thus contributing to global warming. Recycling kitchen waste via in-vessel composting (IVC), anaerobic digestion (AD) or thermophilic aerobic digestion (TAD) helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provides valuable compost and biofertiliser which can be applied to land, replacing inorganic fertilisers and providing a good source of organic matter. AD has a further benefit of producing biogas which can be used to produce renewable energy.

There are three key methods of recycling food waste into a valuable product - in-vessel composting, anaerobic digestion and thermophilic aerobic digestion.

Anaerobic Digestion	In-Vessel Processing

Using Green and Food Waste to Produce Energy	Producing Compost through the In vessel Process

Thermophilic Aerobic Digestion

A composting process which treats liquids and semi solid feed stocks

Garden Waste

Garden Waste is a term used to describe wastes such as grass cuttings, pruning and leaves. Currently the UK collects around 2.4 million tonnes of garden waste per year which is being composted and used in various applications every year.

Over the last couple of years, the majority of garden waste collected and recycled in the UK, has been collected via civic amenity sites.

Garden waste is recycled using a simple windrow process and will be composted down into reusable products, the most common being soil conditioner, accounting for 71% of output material. Other outputs are Mulch, Top soil constituent and turf dressing.

Any material containing household food waste or animal by products would not be processed in this way, and has to be recycled under animal by products regulations using methods such as Anaerobic Digestion or In-vessel composting.