
City of Glasgow College has invested in equipment from Macclesfield based firm, Tidy Planet, to compost an estimated 26 tonnes of food waste per year, on site.
The A900 Rocket Composter, from Macclesfield based organic waste and Waste-to-Energy solutions firm Tidy Planet, will enable the college to process its food waste at source and reduce carbon emissions associated with waste disposal trucks.
In Scotland, it is mandatory for food waste to be sent for either Anaerobic Digestion (AD) or composting, but City of Glasgow College sought a greener alternative which allowed it to cut out the transportation ‘middlemen’ and create a valuable compost resource which it can re-use on site in its gardens.
Fergal McCauley, head of facilities management at City of Glasgow College, said:
We’re passionate about sustainability and are always searching for innovative ways to close the waste management loop – an ethos which is the driving force behind the investment.
“Prior to being able to compost on site, we always sent our food wastes for AD to be recovered. But with the Rocket Composter, we’re going one step higher up in the Waste Hierarchy and recycling them on site, allowing us to autonomously reduce our carbon footprint, as well as our expenditure on disposal trucks.”
Huw Crampton, sales manager and composting expert at the Macclesfield firm, Tidy Planet, added:
We’ve worked with many institutions not just across the country but around the world, helping them to implement composting into their waste management strategies – and this is our third project in Scotland this year. Even with the pandemic going on, the country’s waste still needs dealing with.
“The Waste Hierarchy is there to help organisations do ‘the better thing’ when it comes to dealing with their wastes – to avoid them being landfilled or incinerated without energy recovery, and it’s great to be working with this major Scottish college to streamline its operations and make them more sustainable for the future. ”