Watt hours from your food waste

Devonshire Hall, our beautiful Grade II listed venue, is no stranger to looking at sustainable solutions after being awarded a Gold Award from the Green Tourism Business Scheme and nominated for the Green Tourism Goldstar Awards 2013.

Once again, thanks to some creative thinking, the ‘Oxbridge’ style venue has found another opportunity to support the University’s Sustainability Team.

Devonshire Hall has a catering service provided on the site, and Olleco normally supply vegetable oil for cooking, and then remove the used waste vegetable oil for subsequent refining and use in bio-diesel. However, Olleco also identified an opportunity to collect food waste from the site, and take it away for use in a 400kW anaerobic digestion (AD) plant located at Clayton Hall Farm near Wakefield.

The food waste is added to other organic matter, agitated for 60 days and the resultant gas is extracted for use, with the solid digestate macerated and pasteurised for use as fertiliser.

Consequently a pilot scheme was set up in January, whereby the staff collected food waste from the kitchen and dining room, which was then stored in purple wheelie bins on site. Olleco then made weekly visits to the site to collect the food waste and transport it the short distance to the AD plant.

The scheme has so far collected over 2.6 tonnes of food waste that has been diverted away from landfill, and which now helps to produce energy for other users.

Devonshire Hall has received a Gold Award from the Green Tourism Business Scheme and as such we are committed to working to reduce the impact of its operations on the environment.

Wedding Fayre

Devonshire Hall is holding a wedding fayre on Sunday 1st September 2013. If you would like to find out more please visit our Wedding Page.

If you would like to find out more about organising an event at Devonshire Hall call our Conference and Events Team on 0113 343 6100 or email enquiries@meetinleeds.co.uk