The Government has increased landfill tax from 1st April 2009 by £8 per tonne to £40 per tonne. It is the latest rise which will see landfill tax reach £48 per tonne in 2010. These increases are being implemented in an attempt to help reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill each year.
The amount of food we throw away is a major contributor to the production of greenhouse gases in the UK, currently most of our food waste is going to landfill sites. Once in landfill, food breakdown produces methane – a greenhouse gas 21 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide. The sealed process used in anaerobic digestion captures the methane produced through food breakdown and converts it to renewable energy and heat.
Selby Renewable Energy Park will have capacity to divert 165,000 tonnes of food waste away from landfill and provide producers of packaged food waste with a solution to help them move towards zero waste to landfill and meet their coporate social responsibility objectives.