Two new large recycling vehicles powered entirely from the food waste they collect have been launched by GENeco, Bath-headquartered Wessex Water’s renewable energy and recycling company best known for its poo-powered Bio-Bus.
The vehicles, pictured, which service cafés, restaurants, schools and offices around the West of England, are the latest addition to the expanding fleet of GENeco’s ‘Bio-Bees’, which have served Bristol since 2017.
The pair have been nicknamed Buzz Lightyear and Buzz Aldrin by the public, following a poll by GENco.
The two newcomers are being deployed wider across Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire and South Wales.
The food waste collected is taken to GENeco’s anaerobic digestion facility in Avonmouth, where it is turned into clean biomethane fuel used to sustainably power local homes and – in a UK first – the Bio-Bees themselves, reducing their wheel-to-wheel carbon dioxide and particulate matter emissions by over 90%, than if they were to be powered by diesel.
GENeco head of liquid waste resources Francis Marsh said: “Following the success of our Bio-Bees in Bristol and the positive changes they have made to the local environment, we are really excited to expand the service to collect and recycle food waste from more businesses across a larger region.
“Every year an estimated 20m tonnes of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere across the UK from food waste that is sent to landfill to rot, instead of being recycled.
“The Bio-Bees allow us to harvest the valuable energy and nutrients in food waste and use it to power homes and vehicles in a more sustainable and ethical way.”
GENeco said following the momentum generated by the recent alarming IPCC report on the climate emergency and Bristol’s successful bid for to be named a Gold Sustainable Food City, businesses with foodservice facilities are more interested than ever in being sustainable, carbon neutral and sending less waste to landfill.
GENeco, which was created by Wessex Water in 2008, has a history of running vehicles on low-carbon, clean fuels.
This included its Bio-Bug – the UK’s first VW Beetle powered by human waste – and the Bio-Bus, the first bus in the UK to run on sewage and food waste.
