A Sainsbury's store in Staffordshire, in the UK, is being powered entirely by its own food waste.
The store, together with other Sainsbury's stores, has been sending all its food waste to the UK's largest anaerobic digestion plant, which is located close by, in Staffordshire. The plant turns the waste into bio-methane gas, which is then used to generate electricity. Sainsbury's is the largest retail user of anaerobic digestion in the UK. The energy generated from its food waste can power 2,500 households for the year.
Now the Staffordshire Sainsbury's store can receive its electricity directly from the plant via a 1.5-km cable between the two. It has enabled the store to come off the UK national electricity grid, the first time a retailer has been able to do so. The project has been in the works for the past two years and has allowed Sainsbury's to close the loop on food recycling.
Paul Crewe, head of sustainability at Sainsbury's, said, "Sainsbury's sends absolutely no waste to landfill, and we're always looking for new ways to reuse and recycle. We're delighted to be the first business ever to make use of this link up-technology."
All general waste from Sainsbury's stores is recycled by some method with other methods, including donations to food banks or transformation into animal feed.
While Sainsbury's and other retailers' recycling initiatives are commendable and should be encouraged, there is the argument that this amount of food should not be wasted in the first place, and that the real challenge is to reduce the amount of excess food being produced.
© 2014 European Supermarket Magazine by Nicole Gernon
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