by Michael Smith
On January 21, 2009 Sainsbury’s announced zero food waste to landfill plan in Scotland at the Zero Waste conference.
Sainsbury's stores in Scotland are to stop sending food waste to landfill by the end of February 2009 in an innovative new plan announced at the Zero Waste conference in Edinburgh.
Rather than heading to landfill sites, 42 tonnes of waste per week will instead be collected and taken to a site in Motherwell to be converted into bio-fuel, which can then be used to generate electricity.
Sainsbury's aims to stop sending all UK food waste to landfill by this Summer but has fast-tracked the plan in Scotland, making its 28 Scottish stores among the greenest in the country in terms of waste.
Speaking at the conference, Alison Austin, Sainsbury's environment manager said: "This move underlines our commitment to the Scottish Government's zero waste ambition.
"Each tonne of food waste diverted from landfill by Sainsbury's will generate enough power for 500 homes and will save 3 tonnes of CO2 compared to fossil fuels.
"Scotland is at the forefront of our wider UK plan to completely cut our dependence on landfill. This is the first step in a plan that will see Sainsbury's stop using landfill for food waste by this Summer and stop using landfill completely by the end of the year.
"Businesses throughout Scotland and the rest of the UK need to demonstrate their commitment to finding workable, commercially sound solutions to today's environmental problems."
"The plan that we have developed will not only substantially reduce our landfill usage in Scotland, it will also cut our CO2 emissions as we will be putting far fewer trucks on the road."
Sainsbury's have enlisted the help of PDM Group, a company that generates electricity from biomass. The use of biomass for power generation is 'carbonneutral' as the carbon released during the production of the energy is balanced by that absorbed by plants during their growth.
A single truck will be used to travel to all the Sainsbury's stores in Scotland to collect the waste and deposit it at the site in Motherwell. By collecting it in this way rather than by using single skips at individual stores, around 336 lorries will be taken off the road.
While it this step by Sainsbury's is very much commendable and one can but hope that this will be extended to the rest of the United Kingdom, as far as I understand this food waste is so-called “unsold” food from its stores.
Why, I would like to ask, is this food “unsold” and, if the throw out happens just at the “sell-by” date then why is this food not being distributed to the needy, to those that cannot buy the food as they do not have the funds. If a disclaimer, an indemnity would be needed from the recipients I am sure one could work out ways of how to do this.
Obviously it is a lot better to turn this unsold and hence waste food into biogas for energy but, in my opinion, it would be better still if it could go to feed the needy, in Scotland, and elsewhere in the UK.
But, alas, I do know that giving away food that it otherwise going to be thrown out, especially as far as produce is concerned, once a common practice with market traders, is nowadays against the rules of health and safety.
Once upon a time market traders and greengrocers would call over the kids of the poorer families in the villages, for instance, when they saw them passing and give them a bag of oranges, apples, greens and whatever else “to take home to Mom” and no one ever got ill from that. For many poor and poorer families that was most welcome food. It still might be today but legislation seems to say “no” to such gestures.
Haven't we come a long way?
© M Smith (Veshengro), February 2009
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Sainsbury’s unveiled zero food waste to landfill plan in Scotland
