Cibus Waste from Food to Fuel
By Dave Young
Around 10 million tonnes of waste food is thrown away in the UK every year, much of it going to landfill and thereby creating environmentally harmful greenhouse gases. Once these rubbish tips are full ̶ predicted to be in about three years ̶ what then?
One answer is anaerobic digestion, allowing micro-organisms to breakdown the biodegradable matter inside an enclosed system. This process gives off methane, which is collected and converted into biogas and used to generate electricity. What remains is a nutrient rich digestate used as a fertiliser for agriculture.
CREDIT: Dave Young
Hasting-based Cibus Waste Ltd was created to provide a more efficient and environmentally friendly method of food waste disposal throughout Kent and Sussex. HIP spoke to its director Simon Prior who, along with his business partner Alan Taylor, launched the enterprise six months before the start of the Covid pandemic. Both had previous involvement in the waste industry and knew that to attract customers they’d need to appeal as much to cost savings as environmental considerations.
“For most people the main point is to save money,” says Prior. Put simply, food waste (like glass) is heavy. “For a company it can push commercially collected bins over a weight and price threshold. Being carbon neutral may be a good moral point and convince some, but cost is key.”
The food waste collected from Cibus’s distinctive 120 or 240 litre capacity orange bins is taken to an anaerobic digester unit in Maidstone. Early each morning four lightweight trucks ̶ small enough to access tight places and each equipped with a quiet electrically-powered loading lift so as not to wake the neighbours ̶ make an early start from their depot off Ivy House lane. In a perfect world the vehicles would be battery powered, but at present the mileage range isn’t sufficient and the payload penalty (batteries are heavy too) prohibitive.
The geographical range of Cibus is wide, west towards Brighton and Crawley, eastward to Folkestone. Predictably the distances between the rural collections are the longest, and in common with many coastal firms there’s the frustration of only having a 180 degree customer catchment area. Although some domestic flat blocks are serviced, most waste food pick-ups are commercial. Fortunately, the relatively modest scale of the Cibus operation is not of interest to large rubbish and recycling collectors such as Veolia and Biffa. “There was a gap in market for an independent, dedicated supplier,” explains Prior.
Currently there’s no statutory local government doorstep food waste collection south of Tunbridge Wells ̶ despite the practice being commonplace and long standing in London boroughs. All organic waste will be banned from landfill by 2023 and new government legislation coming soon will mandate local authorities throughout the UK to provide kerbside collection of domestic food waste. This is unlikely to have much impact on the Cibus business model and at present the firm is slowly growing to meet demand. Customers want to embrace environmentally friendly practices and reduce their carbon footprint while simultaneously controlling costs at a time when the price of general commercial refuse – along with much else – is spiralling. Recycling, it’s a Hasting thing.
Who Cibus collect from:
Restaurants and cafés, nursing and care homes, food manufacturers, wholesale food suppliers, schools and colleges, hotels and holiday parks, office complexes, retailers, supermarkets, bakeries.
What Cibus collects:
Fruit and vegetables – out of date, damaged, peelings
Meat – out of date, off cuts, small bones and carcasses
Tea and Coffee – bags, dregs
Fish – off cuts, outdated, bones, frozen
Bread and cakes – stake, dough, flour, sandwiches, pastries
Dairy products – cheese, yogurts, creams.
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply