Churchill Fellowship
Lisa Brown
Impact Environmental Consulting
Churchill Fellowship
 Approximately 100 awarded to Australians each
year
 United Kingdom, Norway, Canada and USA
 Eight week study tour
 Met 55 waste professionals and visited:
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Processors
Commercial collection
Municipalities
Regulators
Haulers
Schools
 Report available
Food Waste Diversion - It Matters!
 Large proportion of waste stream
 23% of all waste to landfill in NZ is organic
 53% of this organic waste is food/kitchen waste
 Recent audit of fourteen Councils in Sydney showed food
comprises 42.7% by weight
 Role in Climate Change:
 Direct emissions - 3% of Global
 Indirect emissions:
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Approximately 25% of TOTAL NATIONAL emissions arise from food
production and distribution;
Potential as source of renewable energy which will in turn displace
use of fossil fuels (U.K. est. up to 2% of renewable electricity may
arise from waste)
United Kingdom
 Very high profile issue in UK
 Gordon Brown commented on importance of
reducing food waste
 Mayor of London announced ‘Foodwaste to Fuel
Alliance’ – 10 June 09
 Deliver 5 new bio-fuel plants in London by 2012;
 £84 million over next 3 years for waste reduction, over 1/3 is
for waste to energy projects;
 BAA (8,000 tonnes – AD), Sainsbury (AD in London) and
Keystone have joined Alliance
United Kingdom
 EU Directive “Council Directive on the landfill of
waste (European Union, the Council 1999) driving
diversion of organics / biodegradable waste
 Mandates a stepwise reduction to:
 75% of 1995 level by 16 July 2010
 50% of 1995 level 16 July 2013
 35% of 1995 level by 2020
United Kingdom
 Tax for each tonne of biodegradable waste will be
equal to NZ$145.00 / tonne by 2010.
 Level of fine the EU might impose on the UK
unknown
 Central government involved:
 New Technologies Demonstrator program
 Private Finance Initiatives (PFI)
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Approximately NZ$7,620,000 allocated
Currently forty (40) projects being investigated.
Capital costs of a new processing facilities, utilising a
‘proven’ technology is annualised - capital cost
covered by the central government.
United Kingdom
 Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs)
 Each MWh of electricity from Advanced
Conversion Technologies (AD, Gasification and
Pyrolysis) for organic component of waste
stream eligible for one ROC
 Proposal for ROC eligibility for AD to double to
two ROCs and landfill gas extraction eligibility
to reduce to one quarter of one ROC
 ROCs traded - in July 08 average value was AUD
$135.25
United Kingdom
 WRAP
 Love Food Hate Waste Program
Raise profile of food waste
 One third of all food purchased is wasted
 Studies into best way to collect and process
 Recommend use of AD over composting
 Food should be collected weekly with garbage
fortnightly
 Food collected without garden organics
 Draft Quality Protocol for Digestate
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Norway
 01 July 2009 – New Regulation prohibiting disposal of
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biodegradable waste
Ban on disposal of easy degradable organic waste
introduced in 2001.
61% of the population or 2.2 million people have access to
source separated food collection. 14,000 tonnes in 02
Only 25% of population have a collection service for garden
waste
Driven by view that diverting organics from disposal is ‘low
hanging fruit’ for GHG reductions
Norway - Municipality Of Oslo
 Population: 1,283,533
 Proposes to introduce SSO this year
 One bin with three streams
 White bags for garbage, blue bags for plastic and
green bags for organics
 Optically sorted
 Processed in AD with biogas upgraded for use in
city buses
 Will also process sewage through AD and use
biogas in city buses.
Norway Sewage Treatment Works
 Commenced accepting food waste when regulations
changed to prevent food waste being fed to pigs
 Feedstock:
 148 cubic metres of sewage (at 1-2% dry solids);
 14 cubic metres of food scraps
 36 litres methanol
 With introduction of food waste, biogas production increased
from 850,000 Nm3 at 60-65% to 2,100,000 Nm3
 Only plant in Norway with biogas upgrading system. Gas
upgraded for use in local vehicles.
 Produces 165,000 Nm3 of upgraded gas (this requires
218,000 Nm3 of raw biogas)
Toronto
 510,000 Single Dwellings and 500,000 Multi Unit
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Dwellings
Introduced food collection in 2002 - 2005
Driven by landfill closure
Processed in AD with digestate composted
Residents allowed to use plastic bags to wrap organics old bread bags etc
Total diversion rate from single dwellings is 59%, 15.5%
of which is food waste
Allow all organics, including nappies, kitty litter and
hair
Over 90% participation rates
Toronto
 Bags ???
 20%, by weight, of feedstock is plastic bags (9% of which is
water)
 Bags removed in wet pretreatment system by rake after pulping
and prior to AD
 Less than 0.5% plastic is left in the digestate
 Composting processor has no problem with removing bags
 Contamination
 1.5% heavies (Knives and bones)
 1.5% grit
 20% bags (half of which is water)
United States
 No equivalent regulation to EU Landfill
Directive
 Very inexpensive landfilling
 Small number of programs driven by
progressive waste managers and green
communities
Innovations
 Trial to use clear plastic bags in Durham Region,
with garbage containing recycling left at kerbside.
 Two AD facilities accepted commercial food waste
with packaging.
 Upgrading biogas for use in vehicles.
 Sewage treatment works accepting food organics.
Innovations - Offsets for
Composting
 21 April 2009 the ‘Avoided Emissions from Organic
Waste Disposal’ protocol was approved by the
Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX).
 Eligible projects diverting food and other organic
waste from landfill and thereby mitigating
greenhouse gas emissions will be eligible for
carbon credits or offsets under the CCX.
 One dry tonne of food waste = 4.94 tonnes of CO2
 At NZ$5.13/credit, Composter receives $25.35 per
tonne of dry food waste diverted.
Summary
 Regulation driven in Europe and UK. Link to GHG driver.
 Canada and U.S.A. grass roots - driven by Municipality or County
 Provision of bench top bin and liners achieves greatest
participation
 Composting has & remains most widespread processing choice
but anaerobic digestion set to grow
 Optimum collection is weekly organics and fortnightly garbage
 Diversion 4.5 - 5.5kg/hh/wk
 Participation 40-60%, Toronto > 90%
Lisa Brown
Impact Environmental Consulting
lisa@impactenviro.com.au
0011 61 02 6583 8112