Severn Trent Green Power (STGP) always aims for great working relationships and encourages partnership working between the business and our Local Authority customers. Evolutions in our contract with Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) have resulted in the creation of a marketing fund, aimed at encouraging food waste recycling from more than 300,000 households in Cherwell, Oxford City, South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse and West Oxfordshire.
Oxfordshire snapshot
We entered into a contract with OCC in 2009 for the recycling of the county’s organic waste. Our long-term contract allowed early investment into two Anaerobic Digestion (AD) facilities in the county. Today, this contract enables us to process food and garden waste from the five districts at our AD and composting facilities located across Oxfordshire.
In 2021/22, we processed a minimum* of 24,912 tonnes of food waste collected from Oxfordshire households at our AD facilities which generated around 9,805 MWh of electricity. Our two Oxfordshire-based AD facilities generate enough electricity to power over 9,000 homes for a year. Although this figure contributes significantly to Oxfordshire’s recycling rate (helping to put some of their districts at the top of the English recycling leader board), we’re always looking for innovative ways to support Local Authorities in removing food waste from the refuse stream and increasing food waste capture.
Marketing fund
Our excellent relationship with the OCC waste team led to us working together to create an annual marketing fund. This was formed specifically to financially support any communications, training and projects needed to push food waste capture even higher than the 1.8kg collected on average per household, per week. After some disruptions caused by COVID, late 2021 saw the first opportunity for the fund to be used.
Project support
The project kicked off with a series of meetings with representatives from OCC and each district’s waste team to discuss progressive project proposals. Holding these meetings between all authorities allowed us to gain important insight into the variety of resident demographics across the districts, deepened our understanding of the best ways to bring about significant behavioural change and allowed us to share technical and operational information that would feed into the chosen project.
The technology at our AD facilities enables local authority customers to present food waste in liners, so by enabling the project to buy a supply of these, the ‘ick’ factor is removed and more residents are likely to participate in food waste collections. Furthermore, our marketing fund allowed OCC to recruit door-knocking staff to hand deliver liners, an information leaflet and food caddies/bins where needed, whilst also having a face-to-face interaction with residents. This included conversations about their food waste behaviours and the benefits of food waste recycling.
We took door-knocking staff on tours of our Oxfordshire AD facilities so they’d be fully prepared to answer any technical questions about the AD process. We welcomed any questions from residents that they couldn’t answer, in order for us to offer as much operational support as possible.
Successes
Follow-up monitoring in this project saw an average increase in food waste presentation of 10%, which is an approximate 3,500 households and 400 tonnes diverted from refuse, increasing recycling rates and lowering disposal costs associated with sending the waste to energy recovery. The project was such a success, it is being repeated in 2023 and door-knocking started this month.
The project was a first-class example of our successful partnership with our Local Authority customers and we will continue to work with OCC and our marketing fund to promote food waste recycling.
*During this time period Cherwell District Council were collecting mixed food and garden waste for IVC treatment.
If you would like to learn more about the treatment of source segregated food waste at our AD facilities, get in contact with us at: commercial@stgreenpower.co.uk.
