The Ludlow Project

Following the success of the pilot project Greenfinch were awarded a second Dti grant in 1998 to design, build and operate a demonstration digester to recycle kitchen waste from 1200 households in the Ludlow area of South Shropshire.

South Shropshire District Council funded the collection which was carried out by Biffa using a 7.5 tonne vehicle.

Participating households were issued with a 15 litre bucket & lid. The bins were left on the kerbside for collection once per week.   The kitchen waste was shredded and macerated to a particle size of less than 10mm before being fed to the digester.   The digester was monitored daily for volume throughput, gas production and gas quality. Samples of the raw waste and digestate were analysed in the Greenfinch laboratory for simple parameters - total solids, volatile solids, pH & volatile fatty acids.

The project period was from October 1999 to April 2001, during which time 300 tonnes of kitchen waste were recycled, producing 42,000 m³ of biogas.