The Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association (ADBA) held a conference on 7 February with the British Hospitality Association (BHA), as part of a move to increase awareness of food waste disposal through anaerobic digestion (AD).
ADBA’s first AD & Hospitality Conference was held at the Royal Garden Hotel in London as part of its campaign to ‘reach out to the hospitality and food service industry’, which reportedly wastes £2.5 billion of food a year.
Hosted in partnership with BHA, the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), and the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA), the event brought together companies from across the hospitality industry with those from the waste industry (and AD operators), to discuss the ‘opportunities available’ to reduce food waste and send unavoidable food waste for treatment through AD.
Speaking at the conference, Charlotte Morton, Chief Executive of ADBA said: “Source segregation is an important place to start for the hospitality sector. Separating the food waste portion from the general waste and seeing what is actually being thrown away helps businesses reduce waste food in the first place – by far the best option and eight times better even than AD for the environment.
“Once the unavoidable food waste element is separated out, the AD industry can turn this into an ultra-low carbon renewable gas and valuable biofertilisers, helping to support the UK’s energy and food security.”
John Dyson, Food and Technical Affairs Adviser, BHA, added: “With food prices a significant cost for hospitality businesses, the focus for our sector is first and foremost to reduce the volume of food waste produced. But there will always be some portion that cannot be avoided – that’s why the BHA partnered with ADBA to highlight the benefits of anaerobic digestion as a treatment option for remaining unavoidable food waste.
“The first AD & Hospitality Conference has provided an important step in bring the two sectors more closely together.”
To help cohere the waste and hospitality sector, ADBA has now appointed Mike Hanson, Head of Environment and Programme Management at BaxterStorey, to its Board of Directors.
Speaking of his appointment, Hanson said: "The catering industry must consider seriously the role of food waste management in running a business efficiently and in a manner that is sensitive to the environment.
“I therefore welcome this opportunity to work with ADBA and the anaerobic digestion industry to help it communicate the benefits of AD for treating unavoidable food waste with the hospitality sector effectively.”
Find out more about the AD & Hospitality Conference.
Controversy over Feed-in Tariffs
As well as working with the hospitality sector, ADBA has also been involved in promoting the adoption of small-scale AD.
It lambasted government’s decision not to consult on the Feed-in Tariff scheme for small-scale AD ‘at this time’, despite Energy Minister Greg Barker, suggesting otherwise.
The present system has just two size-categories concerning tariffs: one for plants producing more than 500 kilowatts (kW); and one for those producing less than 500kW. Since these capacities are measured at the time of registration, and not at the time they ‘come online’, it is argued that it could lead to some plants receiving incorrect (too-low) tariffs from April 2014.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) had said it would consult on ways to amend this, but due to an ‘unexpected number of pre-accreditation applications’, the decision was taken to delay any changes to the FiT scheme until 2015.
Morton said: “It is deeply disappointing that DECC have not been able to follow through on their commitment to ‘consult on measures, including a tariff review, in January [2014]’, and this decision appears contrary to the government’s stated support for small-scale AD on farms in particular…
“The window to save small AD is getting smaller but is not yet closed, as there are a number of plants already in construction... If ministers are serious about keeping small-scale AD alive, realising sustainable rural growth and delivering the recommendations of the Ecosystem Markets Task Force and the Agri-Tech Strategy, they will recognise that a stable FiT regime is central to the industry’s growth.”
Read more about the FiT decision.
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