News in Brief - 2 August 2013

1. Student guide to preventing food waste

Love Food Hate Waste is offering students tips on how to save money and food waste by outlining storage, portion control and recipe ideas.

According to the charity, the average household wastes £50 worth of useable food every month.

The guide gives tips on the following:

‘Perfect portions’ - an online portion planner offers tips of how to best measure food
‘Smart Storage’ – tips include freezing leftovers
Store cupboard staples – Love Food Hate Waste suggests stocking up on the essentials, such as rice, pasta, tinned veg, stock cubes, herbs and spices, flour, salt and pepper…
Share a meal - money can be saved by planning ahead as a group
Skilling up in the kitchen - online videos share cooking tips and recipe ideas
Lovely leftovers – ideas to use leftovers for meals the next day

Read more about Love Food Hate Waste’s ideas and money saving tips

2. HSE guidance for MRF operators

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), in consultation with Waste Industry Safety and Health Forum (WISH), has published guidance aimed at improving material recovery facility (MRF) design.

The ‘Designing and operating material recovery facilities (MRFs) safely’ guide provides advise on: the main health and safety issues at MRFs; how to remove or reduce key general health and safety risks associated with designing, installing, making alterations to, or operating an MRF; guidance on workplace transport and machinery; creating safe working environment for ‘pickers’; and reducing dust, noise, and fire hazards, amongst others.

According to HSE, although the guide is 'primarily aimed at designers, managers, supervisors and users of MRFs’, it may also interest ‘safety professionals who may advise waste management companies and those working at such sites’.

Read the guidance paper ‘Designing and operating material recovery facilities (MRFs) safely’.

3. Fife Council appoints ENER-G for new AD plant

Fife Council has appointed ENER-G to supply a combined heat and power (CHP) system for its new anaerobic digestion (AD) facility at Lochhead landfill site in Dunfermline.

The ENER-G biogas generation system, which will utilise an MTU engine with a 42 per cent electrical output, is already used in numerous AD plants in Germany.

The Fife AD plant, which will begin power generation later this year, will convert methane produced from up to 40,000 tonnes of local food and garden waste into up to 1.4 megawatts of renewable electricity and heat. The renewable heat will supply the council's existing district heating system, which is already supplied by an ENER-G landfill gas generation facility at Lochhead.

According to the company, the plant has the potential to meet all of the heating needs of the local Queen Margaret Hospital, and will achieve carbon dioxide savings in excess of 7,200 tonnes per year. It will also produce an organic fertiliser, providing up to 10,000 tonnes of compost per year for use by local farms.

Chris Ewing, Environmental Sustainability Manager for Fife Council, said: “We believe that turning food and garden waste at Lochhead into power and heat could save the council around £1.2 million each year. It will also contribute to our improving recycling rates, which were 55.5 per cent in 2012 for household and commercial waste."

4. Augean give £7,000 to King’s Cliffe for radioactive waste disposal

King’s Cliffe town will be given £6,844 for agreeing to host a site for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste.

The cash, which will reportedly be used for community projects, is from Augean, operator of the East Northants Resource Management Facility, and represents £5 for every tonne dumped at the landfill site. The figure means that 1,368 tonnes of waste were deposited at the site in a year.

The site accepts hazardous and low level waste (LLW), which typically arise in the UK from the decommissioning of nuclear power stations, science and research facilities, hospitals and manufacturing. The site also operates a stabilisation plant capable of treating Air Pollution Control Residues (APCR) from the incineration of household wastes and treats contaminated soils with technologies including washing, bioremediation and particle and density separation to enhance recovery and disposal.

Last week the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, gave permission for the site to be expanded and its operational life to be extended to 2026.

The application to extend the size and life of the site was opposed by the campaign group WasteWatchers, who feared that the site would become a national nuclear waste site and produce extra pollution, traffic and risk to local wildlife.

Read more about Augean’s East Northants Resource Management Facility.

5. SAICA triples recycling at Princes Mead shopping centre

Recycling and waste management dirision of SAICA, SAICA Natur, has announced that it has helped triple recycling rates at Princes Mead Shopping Centre in Hampshire.

SAICA Natur said that in the first month of the contract (appointed last year), the centre’s recycling rate improved from 25 to 75 per cent.

According to the company, this was achieved by introducing a dry mixed recycling service via wheelie bins, ‘flexible’ food waste collection service, and a small baler for polythene and paper, with colour-coded signage and collection containers to help retailers with the new system.

Princes Mead Shopping Centre’s Director, David Pickett explained: “What really triggered change was the introduction of a waste management tool and training process that showed our retailers exactly what they needed to do and helped them to understand the process fully."