We’ve just started using food waste bins in my area, what happens to it after its collected?
Anyone know?
Also, with a dustcart, how do you know when it needs emptying? Always wondered lol
Probably straight to landfill with food waste it wouldn’t be any good in a transfer station I wouldn’t off thought. I would imagine dustcarts are fitted with on board scales never driven one myself but there must be something like that on them. You’ll soon know when it needs emptying when you can’t compact any more into it and its spilling out the back 
.
bazza123:
We’ve just started using food waste bins in my area, what happens to it after its collected?
KFC
In Milton Keynes.
Food/Green waste usually goes for composting, they use dedicated vehicles that will only collect the Green Waste. It’s taken to one of 2 tips, that collect it up, then Artics take it to processors who turn it onto compost.
It’s all mixed up & turned over a few times until it rots, then they sell it back to us as compost or the farmers put it on the fields.
Some of the denser waste, ie from restaurants purely food (heavy as ‘F’) is used in small stand alone power stations, using the gasses to heat the water for the turbines (I think that’s how it works !) people like Biffa & Veola tend to do this work.
A lot of refuse lorry’s/compactors have weigh’ers on them. But as already been said. Once they are full they won’t compact any more.
We used to have 6 wheel/26 tonner, Twin Paks for recycling & general black bags.
They have 2 hoppers/compactors, side by side,one for general & a smaller one for recycling (plastic, cans, papers etc) they also had a glass pod in front of the two hoppers.
Average load would be approx’ 5-6 ton of black bags for landfill, 2.5 ton of recycling, 2.5 ton of glass.
The black bags tend to be a lot denser than the pink recycling bags so they are heavier & pack better.
They usually fill 'em up twice a day, 3 times a day just after Xmas !
Slight side shift Tesco just announced how much they waste .
And their stopping some of their multi buys be better to just sell it cheaper in the 1st place
If you look between the back of the cab and the compactor body you can see a large metal wall that gradually moves towards the cab as the compactor fills up. When it won’t come back any further it’s full!
Ah right thanks just wondered really. The food waste in supermarkets is massive, whole slabs of beer flung out, sirloin steaks, trays of coffee, al the expensive stuff. Why they can’t sort this out rather than writing it off I don’t know. They must waste millions of pounds of stock per year.
When I was really young, someone started a small fire in our local store (not saying which company!). Did hardly any damage. They sold all the store stock off as fire damaged, everything! My mum and dad got some cheap saucepans out of that, not sure how saucepans could be damaged with a very small fire in another part of the store though lol.
All this food recycling and garden waste recycling they do makes me laught really…I am dammed sure the costs of associated with running these vehicles, not to mentioned the 100% increase in fuel, must surely outweigh the benefits of picking up the waste. Bring back the bonfire 
Look at the waste in the fishing industry,a boat hauls in a net full of the wrong kind or size of fish and they have to be dumped overboard dead.Why cant we eat what has been caught?
alamcculloch:
Look at the waste in the fishing industry,a boat hauls in a net full of the wrong kind or size of fish and they have to be dumped overboard dead.Why cant we eat what has been caught?
Don’t be silly !
They who rule us won’t make enough money out of that !
Better to kill all the baby Cod then tell the general public that there’s a shortage !!!
Around here it is fed into an anaerobic digester. It basically has water added and ferments, giving off methane which powers a gas turbine. Any plastic, metal etc that has got into the waste is retrieved by magnets or is floated off in a similar way muck is washed to produce recycled sand and gravel.
The slurry is pumped into lagoons and sold to farmers, the solid compost is sold off too.
Our council say “no plastic bags, use (overpriced) compostible caddy liners.” Utter crap, plastic bags will be floated off as described above and end up in a roro skip. To prevent the binmen becoming jobsworths, put plastc bags in first, then cover up the bag with a proper liner. It’s the same principle as practiced by many builders when tipping at recycling yards (crap buried by topsoil).
Muckaway:
Around here it is fed into an anaerobic digester. It basically has water added and ferments, giving off methane which powers a gas turbine. Any plastic, metal etc that has got into the waste is retrieved by magnets or is floated off in a similar way muck is washed to produce recycled sand and gravel.
The slurry is pumped into lagoons and sold to farmers, the solid compost is sold off too.
Our council say “no plastic bags, use (overpriced) compostible caddy liners.” Utter crap, plastic bags will be floated off as described above and end up in a roro skip. To prevent the binmen becoming jobsworths, put plastc bags in first, then cover up the bag with a proper liner. It’s the same principle as practiced by many builders when tipping at recycling yards (crap buried by topsoil).
anaerobic digester That’s the word I was looking for, but couldn’t remember what it was. (a few years since I was in the waste game & Alzeimers is setting in- slowly 
)
ASDA use it in their Smart Price value food I reckon. That or it’s put in vending machines in driver’s waiting rooms
Muckaway:
Around here it is fed into an anaerobic digester. It basically has water added and ferments, giving off methane which powers a gas turbine. Any plastic, metal etc that has got into the waste is retrieved by magnets or is floated off in a similar way muck is washed to produce recycled sand and gravel.
The slurry is pumped into lagoons and sold to farmers, the solid compost is sold off too.
Our council say “no plastic bags, use (overpriced) compostible caddy liners.” Utter crap, plastic bags will be floated off as described above and end up in a roro skip. To prevent the binmen becoming jobsworths, put plastc bags in first, then cover up the bag with a proper liner. It’s the same principle as practiced by many builders when tipping at recycling yards (crap buried by topsoil).
I bet you need a fair few lettuce to generate anything which is remotely profitable?
I bet it does; I’ve been reliably informed the turbine is powered by twin Cat V16 engines. I think a better way to generate energy is to build incinerators like the ones going up at Ardley and Calvert. Good road and rail links to bring large amounts in in one go and all the free methane to power it from the landfills.
Didcot A power station is gathering dust with a large rail terminal attached. Surely it’s not impossible to convert the coal furnaces to burn waste? The ash could be used in block making and hey presto-Ecobricks.
There’s been a big fuss in Kings Lynn for a few years now concerning a big waste incinerator that is planned.
Not sure whats feel on this, I suppose locals are worried about toxins etc or the smell.
There was a waste incinerator at Dundee for a few years,its been closed down because of protests from the locals.The stuff coming out of the chimney is not pleasant.
alamcculloch:
There was a waste incinerator at Dundee for a few years,its been closed down because of protests from the locals.The stuff coming out of the chimney is not pleasant.
But many of the protesters will want to be cremated one day.
Muckaway:
alamcculloch:
There was a waste incinerator at Dundee for a few years,its been closed down because of protests from the locals.The stuff coming out of the chimney is not pleasant.But many of the protesters will want to be cremated one day.
Yep It’s double standards!!