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News Index |
Kitchen waste collection scrapped
East Devon community enterprise Otter Rotters has been forced to stop its weekly kerbside collections of kitchen waste in Honiton and Dunkeswell. The service has successfully diverted 65 tonnes from landfill. Yet 18 December marked the last collection day for the two towns.
Otter Rotters is a non-profit community venture based in the Otter river valley in East Devon. It provides garden waste collection and a timber recycling service. From November 2006 until last month, it also provided a kitchen waste collection service, called the Alchemy Project. Collected material was taken to Otter Rotters' Alchemy facility at Combe Raleigh, which processed it into a high-grade compost and methane. This kind of anaerobic digestion (AD) produces 100 per cent renewable energy. Joan Ruddock MP supports AD as the best process to use: "The whole process reduces greenhouse gas emissions when compared with other waste processes."
Otter Rotters has been pressing the local councils to adopt a localised AD process, as trialled by the Alchemy Project. Despite local support, East Devon District Council is unwilling to commit itself to localised processing of organic wastes. Phil Foggitt, Otter Rotters' Managing Director, comments: "This isn't about money, it's about vision and genuine commitment to sustainable practices. Decentralised waste management is the future and local authorities need to grasp this opportunity rather than enter into restrictive large-scale contracts which do not benefit taxpayers."
