Hotel's food waste to be turned into energy
LEFTOVER food thrown out by a Doncaster hotel could soon be playing a small part in solving the country's energy crisis.
The Mount Pleasant Hotel in Great North Road is collecting the waste so it can be processed as a renewable energy source without being sent to landfill where it gives off methane gas when it rots.
The hotel has teamed up with three other local businesses to undertake a month-long trial of an innovative compostable caddy called the Grott Box, as part of the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme in Yorkshire and Humber.
Because catering waste can no longer be given to local pig farmers as feed, thousands of tonnes of food waste are rotting down and releasing methane, which is 25 times more potent than CO2.
The Grott Box, developed by Angelheart Inc from Doncaster, is a 25 litre cardboard box with a biodegradable wax layer on the inside, making it waterproof from the inside out. Over the next month hotel staff will be filling the boxes with the mountain of catering and buffet waste generated over the party season and storing it in a secure container in the hotel grounds.
Once the boxes are full Middletons Ltd will transport them to Prosper de Mulder's animal by-product processing site in Town End, Bentley, and used as a renewable energy source.
Andrew Gadd, Regional Coordinator for NISP Yorkshire and Humber said: "Buffet catering is invariably excessive because of the need to be seen as a good host.
"Christmas and New Year parties are an ideal time to try to measure exactly how much food waste a hotel produces and explore innovative ways of making use of that high-energy material. One small pork pie can power a 60W bulb for 22 seconds."
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Friday 25 May 2012
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