The Pioneering Care Partnership (PCP) found a local waste collection thanks to the power of social media.
Emerald Biogas, which operates the north east’s first commercial food waste anaerobic digestion (AD) plant, promoted its food waste service through the social media micro community ‘AycliffeHour’ on Twitter, which is how PCP first found the waste disposal services on offer.
After meeting with the renewable energy company to discuss its requirements, which includes disposal of food waste from the Centre coffee shop, staff kitchen and nursery, Emerald Biogas is now working with the charity and collecting all of its food waste to process at its AD plant on the Business Park.The PCP is delighted their food isn’t being sent to landfill.
Carol Gaskarth, Chief Executive, PCP, said: “After hearing what Emerald Biogas could do with our food waste and the processes involved we were immediately interested. The idea of turning our food waste into energy was extremely useful, as we are always looking for ways to reduce waste going to landfill. In line with this we want to reduce our impact on the environment, as well as helping any local economy through the energy produced from the waste generated.
“We are currently accredited with the environmental quality standard ISO 14001 and through this system; we have set ourselves ambitious objectives and targets to meet, with reducing waste to landfill being one of those objectives.
Adam Warren, Director, said: “We regularly engage with online business communities such as ‘CoDurhamHour’, ‘AycliffeHour’ and ‘North East Hour’, as they are a great way of making new contacts and potential customers while raising general awareness of the business. In this instance, being able to help a local community organisation to dispose of its food waste in a greener way is meaningful to both PCP and to Emerald Biogas and we were more than happy to help.”
Emerald Biogas currently employs seven staff at its £8m state-of-the-art AD facility based at Newton Aycliffe Industrial Estate, generating enough energy to power 2,000 homes through its food waste processing.
For more information about Emerald Biogas at www.emeraldbiogas.com
