150 tonnes of food waste going to landfill in Guernsey

Friday, 2 May 2025 07:20

Guernsey Waste says its food waste processing plant has been out of action since 21 April.

Around 5,000 tonnes of food waste is produced on Guernsey each year.

This is typically shipped to Basingstoke to be broken down into biogas and biofertiliser.

However, a technical fault in the Guernsey facility means that domestic and commercial food waste cannot currently be separated from the plastic collection bags or turned into a shippable liquid.

The waste has been stockpiled at the Longue Hougue Household Waste and Recycling Centre, while a solution is sought, and has started decomposing.

Guernsey Waste says to reduce the likelihood of an unmanageable backlog when systems come back online, the decision has been made to redirect 150 tonnes of food waste to Mont Cuet.

This equates to around one-and-a-half weeks’ worth of the island’s food waste.

Guernsey Waste’s Operations Manager Sarah Robinson says this is a rare occurrence.

“We have been processing food waste and exporting it for anaerobic digestion successfully since 2019 and have thankfully only experienced minor breakdowns in the equipment previously, mainly damage to the hardware when items such as rocks to weigh down caddies in bad weather have made their way into the waste stream.

"This fault is more technical and complex in nature and is requiring involvement from several parties to resolve it.”

Senior Technical Adviser for Guernsey Waste, Rob Roussel, says engineers are expected to fix the issue by the end of next week.