Swancote Energy have devised a straightforward process to enable our customers to dispose of their food waste in a cost effective and timely fasion, whilst providing full traceability of the waste, as well as certification of destruction once the material has been destroyed.
How we dispose of your food waste
Email us at enquiries@swancoteenergy.com, call us on 01746 716400 or fill in our contact form.
Once we have understood the services you require, we will confirm all arrangements and associated costs in an email for you to authorise.
It is an Environmental Agency requirement (and therefore the law) for all companies sending food waste for destruction to complete both a “Duty of Care” and “Agreement to Supply Waste for Anaerobic Digestion”. This is a once only annual requirement. Find out more about permits and documentation here.
Food waste collection services are available from all over Great Britain. We outsource all our transport requirements to trusted hauliers who we have been working with for years. We can arrange the following food waste collection solutions:
- Curtain Siders – 1 to 26 pallets - weight capacity to 29 metric tonnes
- Bulk Tipper Trailers – loose waste - weight capacity to 26 metric tonnes
- Tankers – liquids - weight capacity to 28,000 litres
- Skips / roros – a variety of sizes and capacities are available and delivered to your site and exchanged or removed when full.
All transport charges are passed on by Swancote Energy to our Clients “open book” without “mark up”. View the licences for the companies we use here.
Alternatively, Clients may wish to arrange their own transport, in which case we would need to receive a copy of the chosen Hauliers Waste Carriers Licence prior to them arriving at our facility.
Once the food waste is received at our site, it is processed and destroyed within 48 hours of arrival.
The state of the art machinery that we have on site allows us to separate the food waste if it is received in packaging. This is the case for food in glass, plastic, tin or any other type of container.
A liquid “soup” is produced when de-packing the food waste. This is then fed hourly into the digesters 24/7. The food is broken down in anaerobic conditions (without air) which produces a biogas consisting of 60% methane, 40% carbon dioxide.
The biogas is fed into 3 CHPs (Combined Heat and Power units) which produce 3.4MW of electricity per hour. In addition, the heat produced by these engines is harnessed to generate a further 150kw using an ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle). If Swancote Energy exported all electricity production to the National Gird, it would be enough to power approximately 9,000 homes for 12 months. However, we choose to supply, via a private wire, a local business, which is the area's largest employer.
The final stage of the anaerobic digestion process produces circa 50,000t of an organic liquid fertiliser. This is used by local Farmers as a proven alternative to chemical fertilisers. No fossil fuel is used in the production of the digestate and it is 100% organic.
If the food waste is in packaging, then this is separated from the food. What happens to the packaging after this process:
- Cardboard – recycled
- Glass – recycled
- Plastics – sent to “Energy from Waste” (EFW) Plant where it is incinerated to produce green energy
Swancote Energy operates a strict policy of “Zero Waste to Landfill”.
After the food waste has been destroyed, a Certificate(s) of Secure Destruction can be issued as follows:
- For an entire load of food waste
- For a specific group of pallets
- For individual pallets
- For individual SKUs
Wording and content can be customised to meet a Clients specific needs. You can find an example Certificate of Secure Destruction here.