Harnessing The Benefits Of Anaerobic Digestion In Suffolk

27 June 2011

Suffolk County Council has followed the success of its recent conference about anaerobic digestion by working with the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP) to run a free workshop encouraging business networking to find and develop solutions for organic wastes

70 biodegradable waste producers, collectors, processors and developers from the region met at Tattersalls Park Paddocks in Newmarket for the Anaerobic Digestion and Organics workshop.

The workshop brought together key industry contacts and focused on areas such as: anaerobic digestion, composting, creating the infrastructure to process organic waste and food producers and producers of other biodegradable wastes.

Lisa Chambers, Suffolk County Councillor with responsibility for waste, said: "The day was a great success, and it was fantastic to see so many stakeholders in the room. We heard about DEFRA's new Anaerobic Digestion Strategy and it gave delegates the opportunity to network and make potential business matches by bringing together experts in different fields to deal with organic waste."

"Government policy seems to have driven quite an interest in anaerobic digestion (AD) and NISP and other project partners have been receiving enquiries from would-be AD developers," Steve Pearce from NISP. "NISP were pleased to combine our efforts to help run the events to raise awareness of organic waste processing options and to put stakeholders into contact."

The county council's ambition is to find cleaner, effective alternatives to landfill in a bid to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent by 2025. Anaerobic digestion may be one way to achieve this, while contributing to the Climate Change Act's targets to reduce CO₂ emissions on the national stage.

Climate Change Act

In March, businesses across the East of England got together with heads of industry and government to discuss anaerobic digestion technology at an event entitled Enabling Anaerobic Digestion Conference for the East of England. The conference was jointly organisedby Suffolk County Council in association with The Environment Agency, NISP and Renewables East, funded by Improvement East through the Climate Change Skills Fund.

DEFRA has set out national shared goals, including establishing anaerobic digestion as a significant technology in the UK by 2020, making a "measurable contribution to our climate change and wider environmental objectives."

The Climate Change Act 2008 makes the UK the first country in the world to have a legally binding long-term framework to cut carbon emissions. It sets targets to reduce UK CO₂ emissions by at least 26 percent by 2020, and all UK greenhouse gas emission by at least 80 percent by 2050.

For more on the Climate Change Act CLICK HERE