The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has launched a new initiative, Foodwaste to Fuel Alliance. The new initiative has been launched to convert the city’s food waste into biofuel to reduce landfill rates and carbon emissions. The Foodwaste to Fuel Alliance initiative bring together developers, food producers, energy companies and others parties to provide the new infrastructure needed to extract the fuel from the city’s leftover food.
London produces around three million tonnes of organic waste every year, mainly from food. Nearly two thirds of this waste is currently burnt in incinerators or buried in landfill, which produces potent climate change gases.
So produced biofuel will act as an alternative to fossil fuels to produce a greener energy to heat and power homes and power public transport and other vehicles.
The Mayor wants the Alliance, supported by London’s Waste and Recycling Board, to deliver five exemplar new ‘bio-fuel’ plants in the capital by 2012. This could include the development of anaerobic digestion plants to produce renewable energy, bio-diesel refineries, hydrogen from waste or the use of compost material for the city’s allotments. The Board has GBP84million to spend over the next three years to reduce waste and improve recycling with GBP31million for projects that will create energy.
Boris Johnson, said: ‘London is currently throwing away food waste that could be used instead to produce an eco-fuel for businesses and homes. Whilst we can all take steps to throw less food away in the first place, we are losing this resource by simply chucking it out. I am determined to see that London’s reservoirs of used oil and mountains of leftovers are converted into a greener fuel saving millions of pounds off energy bills. This will also save tonnes of the climate changing gases that are damaging the planet. Three cheers to the forward thinking businesses that have signed up today to solve this problem and I urge others to now come forward to do the same.’
BAA Airports Limited, Keystone Distribution UK and Sainsbury’s are the first to join the Foodwaste to Fuel Alliance to help deliver a step change in the way London deals with its food waste. BAA and Sainsbury’s are working with the Mayor to investigate the possibility of developing anaerobic digestion facilities in and around London. Heathrow airport produces around 8,000 tonnes of food waste each year and BAA is keen to investigate whether it is feasible to convert this into bio-gas to generate low carbon energy or as a fuel for vehicles. Sainsbury’s is keen to help deliver an anaerobic digestion plant in the London area, as part of a planned wider portfolio of waste facilities that will help the company deliver its ‘zero waste to landfill’ goal.
Emma Alexander, Head of waste and water at BAA, said: ‘Heathrow is committed to reducing its impact on the environment. We have strict aims to achieve zero waste to landfill by 2020, as well as increasing recycling to 70%. We are always looking for innovative ways to achieve our aims and that is why we are delighted to be working with the Mayor and the London Waste and Recycling Board to support solutions such as anaerobic digestion for managing airport food waste.’
Alison Austin, Sainsbury’s environment manager, said: ‘We began investing in waste to energy technology over a year ago. Progress has been so quick that by the end of this summer, all of the food waste from our 500 supermarkets around the country will be connected to our Zero Food Waste to Landfill network, meaning it will be diverted from landfill and used to generate electricity. We are pleased to see that many other companies are starting to follow our lead. Food waste is a valuable resource and if it is fully used, it can cut down on fossil fuel consumption as well as use of landfill.’
Bryan Jones, managing director of Keystone Distribution, said: ‘As McDonald’s dedicated food distributor, we have pioneered the conversion of McDonald’s delivery fleet to bio-diesel made by recycling its used cooking oil. In London alone this has cut McDonald’s distribution emissions by over 50% and stopped around 750,000 litres of used cooking oil going to landfill.’