We exist to transform green and food waste into nutrient-rich compost
It’s a simple solution that will tackle the climate crisis, reuse our waste and put nutrients right back into the soil.
The challenge
The Waste Mountain
According to the Waste and Resources Action Programme, UK households produce a staggering 14.6 million tonnes of food and green waste every year. It is estimated that 70% of green waste is collected by local authorities: leaving 2.4 million tonnes disposed of through other means. Those other means could be landfill, home composting, or incorrectly ending up in other waste streams like the recycling collection.
Of the 6.6 million tonnes of food waste generated annually, it is calculated that 2.1 million tonnes of this is unavoidable and must be dealt with in other ways. This means transporting that food waste to the correct facilities, removing non-organic materials like plastic in a lengthy, manual sorting process and eventually turning it into compost. There are obvious financial and environmental costs here, particularly when transporting the food waste.
New solutions are needed
Currently, only one third of UK local authorities collect food waste from residents. New legislation will require all local authorities to collect food waste from 2025 onwards. These new schemes are expected to create an extra 2 million tonnes of separated food waste per annum. This creates two significant challenges:
Food and green waste is heavy and of low value. Transporting it long distances is costly and impacts on the environment. We need to find sufficient facilities near to major population centres that can handle the waste collected.
There is a high level of contamination from packaging, plastic and other non-organic materials in household food waste, reaching up to 20% in some areas. This contamination reduces the value of food waste and makes it harder to turn it into nutrient rich, cost-efficient compost.
The Opportunity
Across the UK, legislation and business practices are changing to meet environmental targets. Enrich the Earth exists to help speed up this process, and find solutions that tackle multiple challenges at once.
Our Compost Revolution focuses on four areas:
Using waste derived products as an alternative to peat
The government plans to ban the use of peat in horticulture. We need to find an alternative for the 950,000 cubic metres of peat currently used in the sector. We believe that roughly 385,000 - 575,000 tonnes of green and food waste could be used as part of the mix to replace peat.
Increasing home composting
Our goal is to increase the amount of food and garden waste used for home and community composting by 1,000,000 tonnes. We can achieve this by raising the percentage of households who are composting from 33% to 50%.
Reducing contamination levels
By reducing plastic and packaging contamination in green and food waste, we aim to enhance its value for the horticultural sector. This is only possible by creating cost effective, high quality compost.
Enhancing legislation
We are advocating for a legislative framework that supports the more sustainable use of garden and food waste. There are many legal barriers in place that need to be addressed, in order to make this change possible and sustainable across the UK.