ReFood begins construction on £32m AD facility in London

UK-based food waste recycler ReFood has started construction work on its £32m (€39m) anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in Dagenham, south east London.

Once complete, the facility, which will be located at the London Sustainable Industries Park (SIP) in Dagenham Dock, will be the company's third UK plant adding to its existing sites in Doncaster and Widnes.

Being built as part of a long-term investment programme, the state-of-the-art gas to grid (G2G) facility will create up to 60 new jobs in the area and is expected to open in summer 2017.

Capable of recycling 160,000 tonnes of food waste each year, ReFood Dagenham will be able to generate more than 2,000 m3/hr of methane gas.

Using G2G technology, this will be upgraded to reflect the qualities of natural gas – allowing it to be injected directly into the national gas grid and used to power more than 10,000 homes across the region.

“Starting construction on our new site in Dagenham is truly a landmark achievement," said Philip Simpson, commercial director at ReFood.

"In London and the surrounding areas, a significant volume of food waste is generated every year and ReFood Dagenham will play a crucial role in recycling this waste. Thus, helping businesses to lower their operational costs, become more sustainable and, most importantly, divert a highly valuable resource away from landfill.

“Our UK operations have grown by 250 per cent since our first year of production in 2012 and we have ambitious plans to further build on this success.”

The Dagenham plant will also provide a transfer facility for Category 3 Animal By-Products (ABP) collected from across London and the South East; currently carried out by ReFood’s sister company, John Knight.

The Category 3 transfer facility is scheduled to commence operation this autumn.