kompost - information leaflet by Gwen Powell

Food Waste

ÂŠ Gwen Powell 2010

Biodegradable waste Think your business is not creating biodegradable waste? Think again! Averages: ± 500g of food waste per person per week in an office without a canteen ± 1.5kg of food waste per cover where an office has on-site catering services ± 2.5kg of food waste per cover in the restaurant or hotel industry

Food Waste going to Landfill: creates methane which is 25% more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide

Government Regulations The EU Landfill Directive, and announcement in the 2010 Chancellor’s Budget that Landfill Tax will increase drastically in the next couple of years -> reaching as much as £80 per ton in 2014/2015, has important implications for waste handling and waste disposal in the UK. To comply with the Government Landfill Directive, all UK businesses are required to pre-treat their general non-hazardous waste before it goes to landfill. One of the ways to comply with this is to segregate waste at source, i.e. to separate recyclables cardboard, paper, steel and aluminium cans, plastic and glass bottles. Further segregating compostable waste could reduce the total volume of waste by up to 35% and our on-site food waste solutions™ systems not only reduces the pay per tonne volumes going to landfill but also eliminates the need for that waste to be transported elsewhere to be treated. © Gwen Powell 2010

Introducing kompost™ kompost ™ identified practical on-site food waste solutions™ for office based organisations and businesses, to include on-site contract catering services, corporate headquarters, schools, colleges and hotels with their own grounds.

Saving businesses money by segregating tea bags and other food waste : → reducing their general waste by up to 35%

→ increasing their recycling rates by as much as 40% → and at the same time leaving both those streams uncontaminated → so that fewer waste collections are necessary.

Pig Man to kompost™ Historically catering food waste was being fed to pigs but in 2001, with suspicions that pigs being fed infected waste that had not been properly heat-sterilized, being the cause for the outbreak of foot-and-mouth in the UK, this practice was banned. kompost™ sets up and services on-site food waste solutions ™ Food waste is the one component of waste that we can recycle ourselves, at source, with no need for it to be transported elsewhere to be dealt with, and becomes a valuable resource in the form of a nutrient rich compost which in turn takes the pressure away from our precious peat bogs. With an imminent ban on biodegradable waste being sent to landfill this will become an obligation rather than a choice.

Small Scale On-Site Solutions Vermicomposting (worm composting) For office based organisations and businesses where no canteen or restaurant is present and the food waste volumes are less that 100 litres (67kg) per week, mainly consisting of tea bags, coffee grounds and fruit & vegetable peelings, the recommended set-up would be compost bins heavily accelerated with Eisenia foetida (red wrigglers) and Eisenia hortensis (Dendras or European nightcrawlers) - in other words creating large scale wormeries in standard compost bins. Animal By-Products (meat / fish / dairy) can NOT be present in this system and very little outside space is required for this set-up. No smells or rodents to worry about and the worm compost is extremely sought after by groundsmen and gardeners alike.

ÂŠ Gwen Powell 2010

Medium / Large Scale On-Site Solutions In-Vessel Composting (micro-organism composting) For on-site catering facilities, schools, colleges, universities, restaurants and hotels with their own grounds where the food waste volumes are larger than 100 litres (67kg) per week and where Animal By-Products (meat / fish / dairy) might form part of the equation, the recommended set-up would be an in-vessel food waste composter. In-vessel composting make use of the naturally occurring micro-organisms present in food waste, by providing the perfect habitat for them, to speed up the composting process. No smells or rodents to worry about and the end product is extremely sought after by groundsmen and gardeners alike.

ÂŠ Gwen Powell 2010

Medium / Large Scale On-Site Solutions We use two different in-vessel food waste composters: the Ridan™ Composter for volumes up to 400 litres (267kg) per week, and the Rocket® Composter for volumes up to 3,500 litres (2,3 tonnes) a week. If the in-vessel composters are used in conjunction with macerators and dewaterers, then food waste volumes of up to 10,500 litres (7 tonnes) can be treated on-site.

Benefits & Case Study 1. Increase profits 2. Enhance brand image 3. Reduce energy & water bills

4. Gain a competitive advantage 5. Meet blue chip tender requirements 6. Reassure customers, staff and investors 7. Improve corporate social responsibility 8. Demonstrate contemporary & progressive management 9. Obtain and/or comply with ongoing ISO14001 accreditations

10. It is more affordable than you think! CASE STUDY: Please ask to see a copy of the case study prepared for the Bank of America (Chester Call Centre) where installation of an on-site food waste solution is saving the company ± £30,000 per annum. © Gwen Powell 2010

“Healing the Landscape” (slightly off topic but nevertheless pioneering)

Joe Hawkins, Head Gardener at The National Trust’s Shughborough Estate in Staffordshire, discovered that by treating plant material infected by the problematic Phytophthora pathogen, which is the cause of diseases like Sudden Oak Death amongst other, with The Rocket® in-vessel composter not only sanitises the diseased plant material but the resultant chemical free compost also benefits Shughborough’s classical eighteenth century landscaped gardens by improving the soil structure – Joe is “Healing the Landscape” with the assistance ofThe Rocket®.

Our Clients Blue chip corporate companies that have already adopted this “third waste stream” for their head offices are SEGRO plc on the Slough Trading Estate, Softcat Ltd on the Thames Trading Estate near Marlow and Rank plc & Mattel Inc. both in Maidenhead. kompost ™ also proudly counts Seacourt Ltd near Oxford, the Henley Business School near Henley-on-Thames and the New Economics Foundation in London as serviced sites. Softcat Ltd managed, with the assistance of a couple of worm colonies, to turn their 1,200 tea-bagsa-week habit into the most beautiful compost. Seacourt Ltd found that to comply with the required continued improvement of the EMAS and ISO14001 Certification they had to call on the trustworthy earthworm, to help them to achieve “zero waste to landfill” – believed to be a first for the printing industry.

Our Clients SEGRO plc on the Slough Trading Estate

New Economics Foundation in London

kompost™, founded by Gwen Powell, is working in partnership with SEGRO to introduce a new concept in food waste recycling to UK businesses, starting with SEGRO’s own HQ on the Slough Trading Estate.

Since being introduced to kompost™, and the concept of a third waste stream, we have managed to keep 4 times more organic waste from our general waste stream, with all the resultant benefits.

kompost™ installs and manages on-site food waste composting™ facilities, turning used tea-bags and coffee grounds, fruit and vegetable peelings, unwanted sandwiches and even canteen waste into high quality compost.

We consider composting as an integral part of reaching our 10:10 targets.

Following an audit at SEGRO’s head office, kompost™ has installed a food waste composter on-site, which is recycling up to 150 litres of food waste per week. Claudine Blamey, Head of Sustainability

Elna Kotze, Operations Director

Contact Details Please do not hesitate to contact Gwen Powell:

www.kompost.co.uk

07941 524 222

gwen@kompost.co.uk

kompostgwen

http://kompostgirl.blogspot.com

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/gwenpowell74

http://www.youtube.com/user/kompostgwen

kompost â&#x20AC;&#x201C; on-site food waste composting ÂŠ Gwen Powell 2010