Recent reports have indicated the United Kingdom is far behind in its efforts to reach many of the standards set by its own government, as well as those mandated by the European Union. Studies have shown that the United Kingdom lags well behind most of the countries in Europe when it comes to recycling and waste management.
In fact, over half of all UK rubbish is currently finding its way into landfills, which is making it nearly impossible for the UK to meet the EU directive to reduce the size of its landfills by half over the next ten years. This has required the UK to look for innovative ways to reduce waste and create alternative sources of energy.
One way to reduce waste as well as create energy is to actually use the waste as the source of energy, thus tackling two problems at the same time. This is why the government has given the go ahead to the United Kingdom’s first energy park, which will take mixed waste and transform it into renewable energy. The center, which will be located at Storey’s Gate in Peterborough, will also recover all of the metal, glass and plastics for recycling. Over sixty thousand homes will benefit from the energy created by the park, which will use waste that would otherwise find its way into a landfill.
The process used by the park is a marriage of several different viable technologies including mechanical recycling, gasification, food waste digestion, and plasma melting as a way to create a zero waste energy solution. It is thought that the park will save over six hundred thousand tons of CO2 per year.
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