Food Waste Collection and Anaerobic Digestion System for Biogas and Biofertilizer

By project CORE

Published on 11 January 2024

Sweden

Norra Mellansverige

About this good practice

It began in 2012 and it was implemented in the following two years.
The collection of the food-waste is made with paper bags that are freely distributed to the households.
At this moment, 81 % of the households participate in the source separate collection of the organic fraction, but there is also some households that perform household composting. It is estimated that annually 28.8 tones of food waste are treated by home composting. The facility is treating around 20,000 tons of biowaste per year and the biogas produced is being primarily used for fuel of vehicles, while the digestate is considered like a fertilizer.

Educational efforts are made to get the house holds to increase the cleanliness from plastic residue of the organic fraction and sorting the food waste correctly.
This to reach the objectives and increase the amount of collected food waste without increasing household food waste in total.
The main stakeholders are representatives from Söderhamn Nära - the municipalities own infrastructure company and from Gästrike Ekogas – the regions anaerobic digestion plant.

Resources needed

The system for collection is managed by the Municipalities own infrastructure company Söderhamn Nära, in charge of the municipalities water supply, heat/electricity, IT and waste management. They are also in charge for transporting the material to the regional anaerobic digestion plant.

Evidence of success

The result of the implemented practice so far is 81% of the households are separating their food waste. During 2024 the aim is that 100 % of the households are participating in the collection in some form, even if they choose to also have their own home compost.

Potential for learning or transfer

This practice has been very successful in the municipality.
There´s been some incentives made when introducing the system, a lower tax for the household if using the two-bin system, one brown bin for food waste and one green bin for mixed garbage.
The brown paper bags which are used to collect the food waste are provided without cost to the households, as well as a stand for easy usage of the bags.
These two factors have made it easy for the households to participate and proven to be a very good way of getting the high numbers of participants from start.
This has been a big help during the implementation and is an important factor in its success.