This page may contain additional navigation below.
Food Composting at Newton Park
Moreton is now composting all its food waste, thanks to the recent installation of a new composter at Newton Park called 'the Rocket'.
In Moreton's kitchen, waste from food preparation and customers' plates is put through a large waste disposal unit called a macerator, then spun through a de-waterer to remove the excess water. After this the food is deposited into buckets, which are taken away by Porterage staff to the composting machine.
Here the food is mixed in equal parts with wood chip, and put into the composter where it is kept at a steady temperature of between 60-70°C. Inside the Rocket an auger slowly turns, mixing the nitrogen-rich food waste with the carbon-rich woodchip and allowing the aerobic bacteria to break it down. Around three weeks later, lovely nutritious compost is deposited out of the other end, which is used on the grounds at Newton Park.
Because the process is fully enclosed (called in-vessel composting, or IVC) we can even include cooked foods and meats, and there are no problems with pests or vermin.
Onsite composting is a great step towards real sustainability. We expect to compost around 45 tons of food waste a year, and have calculated some of the benefits. The Rocket uses approximately 26kwh of electricity per week. Assuming the electricity comes from non-renewable sources, we can attribute a 'carbon footprint' of 28.6kgs of CO2e per week, through the usage of electricity. However, if we sent the food waste to landfill instead, each ton of food would produce 4 tons of CO2e as it decomposed.
By both treating and using our waste onsite, there are reduced CO2 emissions associated with transporting the food off-site for disposal, or bringing in compost from elsewhere.
Our Green Focus:
Catering here at Bath Spa University is not alone in its green focus on the environment. To this end our catering teams have signed up to continually check & look at what we do &why to ensure we are doing all we can to achieve & maintain our green focus .
Helen is our environment champion & conscience involving everyone who comes into contact with catering from, suppliers, contractors, staff, customers, visitors etc . to help us to achieve ours goals for a better, cleaner world.
The Rocket!
