The processing plant used to prepare food waste for export from Guernsey has been restored to working order after more than three weeks out of action.
As reported by Express earlier this month, the machine broke down in April.
Efforts are now underway to clear the remaining tonnes of food waste which have been building up at Longue Hougue Recycling centre while the plant was broken.
When the fault occurred Guernsey Waste said “the only viable contingency plan” was to put some of the food waste into landfill at Mont Cuet, saying it would be a “temporary contingency measure”.
To date, around 90 tonnes of food waste has gone to landfill. That is less than a week’s worth of the island’s total food waste which ordinarily goes off-island.
The machine that prepares the food waste for export to the UK via ‘anaerobic digestion’ was fixed last week and processing resumed yesterday morning.
Sarah Robinson, Guernsey Waste’s Operations Manager, said work has already started on clearing the stockpile of food waste, which should take until early next week.
“After the fault to our processing equipment, the decision to landfill some of the decomposed waste was necessary to prevent issues with future processing and to ensure we had the capacity to continuing accepting deliveries of food waste.
“During that time, every effort has been taken to keep the amount of food waste landfilled to a minimum.
“The team from States Works, who manage the site, have done a fantastic job managing the backlog and limiting the amount landfilled to under 100 tonnes so far.”
Ms Robinson said this is the first technical fault with the machine since the facility was set up in 2019, and it’s the longest interruption to on-island preparation for food waste export in that time.
“Now that the processing plant is operational again, work has begun on clearing the backlog,” she confirmed.
“Some of the oldest remaining food waste may still need to be landfilled if it is deemed unsuitable for processing. However, that will once again be kept to a minimum.”
