British waste-processing innovators Vertal has opened the first of a new breed of hi-tech composting plants for food waste.

Coupling traditional techniques with modern engineering, the new process is compact, fast, energy-efficient, and highly carbon positive.

Vertal’s first facility - re-using a neglected building in Mitcham, South London - will process around 75,000 tonnes of organic waste each year, converting it into a nutrient-rich fertiliser for use in agricultural food production.

This directly replaces petrochemical fertilisers, widely used in commercial farming, which are derived from fossil fuels.

Located just eight miles from the centre of London, the plant also offers a local solution to the capital’s chronic food waste problem.image expired

Every year, London’s restaurants, canteens, factories and supermarkets throw away over 1 million tonnes of food waste.  Most of this currently goes to landfill.

Vertal’s founder - managing director Leon Mekitarian - said: “Food waste is one of the biggest environmental problems the UK faces.  We have the solution.”

 From Food Waste to Fertiliser

“We’re diverting waste from landfill, reducing road miles for waste transport, and replacing petrochemical fertilisers.”

“As a result, our process offers a major gain in both efficiency and carbon positivity over existing waste treatments.”

The Vertal process is an advanced Auto-thermal Thermophilic Aerobic Digestion (ATAD) technology - in effect a super-charged compost heap.

Unlike other energy-from-waste technologies, the process harnesses its own latent heat, so needs no additional direct energy inputs to pasteurise food waste.

Plants are small relative to their throughput, and can be readily installed in existing buildings on urban industrial estates, close to sources of waste.

Vertal plans to build facilities at a number of sites around London and across the UK.

A short video about Vertal can be seen at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAcsAzv3z9M