16 December 2024
This Christmas, we're anticipating more than 10,000 tonnes of leftover food to arrive at our 10 food waste plants across the Midlands, Home Counties, South Wales and South West – where our teams will be working hard to recycle all the unwanted, unavoidable food waste into renewable energy.
From turned-down turkey, roast potato remains to surplus sprouts, all of these can be turned into homegrown renewable energy at our anaerobic digestion facilities when recycled properly. To encourage more families and households to separate their food waste from general waste, we've created a series of Christmas food waste ‘adverts’.
Taking cues from supermarkets’ Christmas campaigns featuring an array of scrumptious festive treats, we've put a different spin on these images to highlight the amount of clean energy that unavoidable food waste, when recycled properly, can generate.
For example, approximately 4,000 tonnes* of mince pies are discarded in the UK every Christmas. If recycled, they can create enough clean energy to play the nation’s favourite Christmas movie Home Alone seven million times. Cheese, estimated to generate 2,000 tonnes** of waste over the festive period, can be transformed into green energy to keep a Christmas tree lit for 400,000 hours!
Through anaerobic digestion, we treat food waste collected from local authorities and food manufacturers to create renewable energy. This process also produces a nutrient-rich natural fertiliser that can be spread to land to enrich soil and grow more food, closing the loop so that nothing is truly wasted.
Mark Barnfield, Commercial Director at Severn Trent Green Power, said: “Christmas leftovers make a great source of ingredients to serve more delicious meals for your family after the party is over. However, once food is past being fit for consumption, it is vital that we capture its remaining energy potential. We’d encourage everyone to use their kitchen caddy to collect their unwanted food waste so we can recycle them into homegrown renewable energy through anaerobic digestion. Don’t forget to check with your local council to find out their collection arrangements over the holidays.”
Sources:
*The Independent, 2015
**The Guardian, 2018