UK missing out on opportunity to copy successful French green business
New UK legislation to be introduced in April 2025 will require businesses and institutions to sort food waste for separate collection. What would be the ideal way for this material to be collected and treated?
In France they are ahead of the game. In major cities a business called Les Alchimistes collects food waste which is taken it to a nearby site and turned it into high quality compost available for sale locally. This neat circular solution is creating green jobs, ensures a heavy, low value waste material isn’t transported long distances and provides a sustainable compost enriching the soil. Intrigued we headed over to Paris to learn more. If it works in France, why not test the concept in Newcastle as part of our Enrich the Earth project creating a new social enterprise?
Our belief in the potential for the idea was reinforced by several factors. The new waste regulations will generate extra volumes of food waste often in small quantities from many organisations that will need to be collected and processed. The French model seemed an ideal way to handle this new material. The UK has signalled an intent to ban peat in horticulture. Low-cost sustainable replacement materials are required of which food waste could be a part of the solution if mixed with other materials. Finally, the desire to find sustainable local solutions is on the increase suggesting there would be broad support for the principles of the potential new enterprise.
At one level our instincts proved correct. Conversations with businesses in Newcastle revealed that a social enterprise such as Les Alchimistes would be welcomed and a sufficient supply of non-contaminated food waste would not be a problem. There was one big caveat, such a service should not carry a heavy cost burden.
Our feasibility study revealed that this requirement for minimal additional cost coupled with the existing legislative framework means that the idea doesn’t financially work in the UK. These findings have intensified our belief that government needs to rethink their policies if they want to see circular economy businesses such as Les Alchimistes flourish in UK cities. What then needs to change?
The current UK food waste hierarchy considers that anaerobic digestion is better for the environment than composting as it can produce renewable energy in addition to recycling nutrients in the digestate. The consequence is that through the Green Gas Support Scheme the incentives available for biowaste to the energy sector can range for £33 per tonne to £59 per tonne and are available for up to 15 years. This makes building Anaerobic Digestion plants attractive and profitable.
This is good news for the waste sector who are planning a rapid expansion of AD sites. The sector views this approach as a simple and profitable way to handle the increasing level of organic waste legislation will require them to collect. There is undoubtedly an important role for AD plants and they will inevitably handle most of the waste created. However, having personally visited one excellent site I have seen how much space they require and how smelly they can be. These are not facilities that are going to be placed close to major conurbations meaning that the organic waste which is heavy and of low value will have to be transported significant distances.
The government’s prioritisation of AD plants is based on its ability to generate energy and their view that the digestate from the sites can add nutrients to soil. However, it doesn’t consider the environmental impact of transportation and ignores the fact that the resultant AD material is low in nutrients like nitrogen, has a high pH and has less beneficial effects on soil structure when applied to land versus compost.
Our view is that in some circumstances the composting route could offer different but equally valuable environmental benefits. However, there are currently no government incentives to allow for this possibility. If the support for AD plants was extended to composting it would give the opportunity for businesses such as Les Alchimistes to flourish in the UK. This would allow for cities across the UK to decide how best to handle the increased levels of food waste that they will be required to collect giving opportunities to create more green jobs and provide highly localised circular solutions.
This call for an equal playing field on government incentives is one of five policy asks that have been developed by the Enrich the Earth partnership. We would be interested in your views on these policy requests and whether you think an approach such as that developed by Les Alchimistes would be beneficial to the UK. Please do email hello@sizzle.org.uk