Thousands of tons of food waste will be the source of the electricity providing heat and light at Sainsbury supermarkets beginning next year.
According to Lawrence Christensen, the chain’s non-executive chair responsible for environmental matters, from 2009 Sainsbury supermarkets will become the first leading retailer in Britain that will recycle waste into methane gas, rather than sending it to landfills.
Currently, the group’s 800 stores send 60,000 tons of food waste to landfill sites annually. With the new scheme, the waste will be taken to anaerobic digester plants instead, converted to methane gas and then used to generate electricity.
Other waste will be composted and used as fertilizer, and some other types will be turned into pet food, Christensen noted. The retail chain also has plans for recycling it 20,000 tones of non-food waste, which includes metals, paper packaging and plastics.
Most waste produced by the supermarkets now is compacted on site, placed in skips and sent to landfills. Christensen indicates that this will change with the introduction of the new waste processing system.
The recycling programme will be based on a pilot that is being conducted at 38 Sainsbury stores in Northamptonshire, in which food that has passed its sale date is sent to an anaerobic digestion facility near Bedford.
www.sainsburys.co.uk
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