Councils celebrate success of new separate food waste collection service

Warwick District Council and Stratford-on-Avon District Council have been collecting household food waste since August 2022 - since then a total of 4,412.48 tonnes of waste has been collected.

The combined Warwick and Stratford household food waste is treated at Severn Trent Green Power's Coleshill anaerobic digestion facility. Anaerobic digestion is a process through which specialist bacteria break down organic matter - such as food waste - in the absence of oxygen and produce biogas. The Coleshill facility can treat up to 50,000 tonnes of household and commercial food waste each year, which is enough to generate 2.4 Megawatts of electricity.  

The biogas produced from this process is either converted to electricity and exported to the national electricity grid or further treated and exported to the national gas grid, supplying homes and businesses with renewable energy. In addition, the process also creates a nutrient-rich liquid bio-fertiliser which is used by UK farmers to help grow the fruit and vegetables that end up back on our plates.

In the two weeks between Christmas and New Year, nearly 460 tonnes of food waste was collected separately across the two districts. It is predicted that Warwickshire residents will be powering the equivalent of 1,024 homes for a year with green energy; this is the equivalent of 8,997 tonnes of carbon not emitted to the atmosphere compared to the same amount of food waste going into landfill. Find out more about what happens to household food waste after collection .