Sark might start recycling food waste.
The island already asks residents and businesses to separate recyclables from black bag waste but their collective efforts could be extended to recycle even more rubbish.
Conseiller Mike Locke and others spent time in Guernsey and Alderney during the summer where they viewed the islands’ waste handling facilities.
The idea was to learn more about how each island deals with its own rubbish and how collectively the smaller islands can work with Guernsey to reduce the Bailiwick’s non-recycled rubbish over all.
Guernsey’s system of using clear and blue bags for different types of recyclable waste was extended to Sark a few years ago, and that works really well said Conseiller Locke.
Having now seen how food waste is handled, Sark will consider asking residents and businesses to separate out food waste from their black bag rubbish so it can be shipped to Guernsey and onwards for treatment at a processing facility in Europe.
As Sark’s black bag waste is burned, taking as much recyclable or reusable rubbish out of it as possible is a good idea said Conseiller Locke.
“Certainly at the moment, we feel that the three of us are working together,” he said.
“The amount of help that we’ve had from Guernsey, both Guernsey Waste and the Guernsey Recycling Group, and also Alderney from their States and their operations guys there, we’ve learned a lot. We think they’ve maybe learned a bit from us too,” he added.
“We’ve been really pleased by the help and support we’ve had from both other islands in helping us come to some form of plan to get our waste on a proper basis going forward.
“We were very impressed with the facilities we saw, both of dirty waste and recycling, and now we have a better understanding of how the waste is handled and where it ends up, and some of the issues that there would be if we were to try and do something, perhaps on food waste. It’s really helped us make our plans to try and arrive at a better solution that costs the island the least amount of money.”
Guernsey’s food waste is processed initially on-island at Longue Hougue before being shipped to Sweden via the UK, where it is used to produce energy.
Guernsey Waste’s contract is with Geminor UK, with that company then deciding what happens to it. Guernsey’s food waste has been going to Sweden since the contract was agreed with Geminor UK in 2018.
Geminor UK ships around 350,000 tonnes of waste from the UK to Europe every year.
Guernsey’s food waste is around 11,500 tonnes of that.
The ships used to transport the waste to Sweden are used for other freight needs too with the waste travelling back to Europe on the ’empty leg’.
The same is true of Guernsey’s waste being ship to the UK, with it being transported on the return leg of freight journeys which are often not utilised as the island imports much more than it exports.