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“Green Gongs” for BiogenGreenfinch twice in a week.
Filed under: Networks News Reduce, Reuse & Recycle
Electricity from Food Waste specialist, BiogenGreenfinch, has been recognised by the Judges at two Awards Ceremonies in one week.
On Thursday 11th February, the Company was highly commended for its ground-breaking local authority partnership with Ealing Council. Only a few days before, it scooped three prizes at the Rushlight Awards.
Biogen Greenfinch and Ealing Council — prestigious award for “partners in grime.”
BiogenGreenfinch and Ealing Council have been Highly Commended for the coveted AFOR (Association for Organics Recycling) Local Authority Partnership Award 2010 at a glittering ceremony at the Hilton Metropole at the NEC in Birmingham.
BiogenGreenfinch is an expert Anaerobic Digestion (AD) company which designs, builds, owns and operates plants in the UK — the only British supplier with the expertise to do all this. The company is responsible for twelve plants to date and currently operates three units processing food waste in Shropshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire. The company takes in food waste from commercial food producers and from eleven local authorities, of which Ealing Council is one.
Philip Greenaway from BiogenGreenfinch says, “The public response to AD has been brilliant in Ealing. People have really got into the idea of separating out their food waste. It helps them feel like they are “doing their bit” to fight global warming and preventing food going to landfill unnecessarily — and of course they are! We’ve been especially pleased by the take up in local schools where we have run a competition to see which children could recycle the most.”
In the twelve months to Dec 2009 Ealing Council has saved £163,440 by using this method and carbon emissions saved over the same period are an impressive 3,700 tonnes.
Acting Manager for Waste Minimisation and Recycling at Ealing Council, Catherina Holmes, says, “It's so important to divert biodegradable waste such as food waste from landfill, and I'd like to thank our residents and partners for making it possible, and in such an environmentally friendly way too. The new schools food waste collections will help — with children using their 'pester power' to get their parents and neighbours to use the service at home, if they aren't already!”
Hat trick at “Green Oscars”
Just a few days earlier, BiogenGreenfinch scored a hat-trick of wins in the 2010 Rushlight Awards, the Oscars of the Environmental World including the top award of the entire event, the Rushlight Award for “a substantial contribution to addressing environmental issues.”
The Anaerobic Digestion experts won:
· Rushlight Waste Composting Award
· Rushlight Waste Innovation Award
· The Rushlight Award (overall “best in show”)
The judges were fulsome in their praise for the Bedfordshire and Shropshire-based company. The judges were particularly impressed by the way in which BiogenGreenfinch has taken a green technology and made it into a genuine, profitable business.
They said, “We were really impressed with Biogen Greenfinch's commercialisation of anaerobic digestion, making it a viable option for supermarkets, catering businesses and local councils. Not only does it cope with a range of food materials but also avoids waste going to landfill, generates electricity and provides organic fertiliser. The wider environmental and economic impact of the process should not be overlooked, it is proven technology, easily replicable and has the potential to treat a huge quantity of food and organic waste at a local level.”
BiogenGreenfinch Chief Executive Officer, Richard Barker says, “This is a wonderful achievement for everyone at the company all of whom are working so hard to ensure we meet our commercial goals and provide a very real solution to the food waste problem. We would also like to thank all our suppliers and partners, not least those local authorities which have had the foresight to see what an excellent proposition Anaerobic Digestion is for them.”
Anaerobic Digestion is the government’s preferred method for dealing with food waste. It has been suggested that if just a quarter of UK food waste was processed using this technology it would generate enough green electricity to power two million homes – as well as reducing significantly the landfill problem and its attendant greenhouse gas emissions.
BiogenGreenfinch is the UK’s leading exponent of Anaerobic Digestion (AD). Formed by the highly successful merger of BIOGEN (UK) Ltd. and Greenfinch Ltd., it is the only UK company which can design, build and operate AD facilities in the UK using its own unique technology.
The company’s design and manufacturing base is at Ludlow in Shropshire and its head office is at Milton Ernest in Bedfordshire. BiogenGreenfinch is part of the Bedfordia Group.
Anaerobic Digestion (AD) is a biological process by which food waste is put into sealed vessels where it breaks down to produce methane gas. This gas is burned to generate electricity. All that is left is a nitrogen-rich liquid digestate, which makes excellent agricultural fertiliser. Methane is twenty-two times more destructive than carbon dioxide as an agent of global warming. Food waste which goes to landfill breaks down in much the same way but the gas is given off directly into the atmosphere.
For further information:
Anita Smith – Marketing Manager BiogenGreenfinch: 01234 827227
07760 164400
anita.smith@biogengreenfinch.co.uk
Simon Garrett – Jardine Michelson PR – 08451 651651
07974 566043
Carolyn Jardine – Jardine Michelson PR - 08451 651 615
07734 837912
Catherina Holmes – Ealing Council 02088 259902
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