The in-vessel system was installed in November 2009 and two members of staff have been employed by Furniture Now! to collect the food waste generated in the offices and feed it into the machine and to collect the compost product at the other end. Compost caddies have been issued throughout County Hall and to the staff canteen.  Food waste is placed into these caddies and collected on a daily basis, the full caddies being replaced with clean ones for the next days waste.  The food waste is then taken to the Rocket and mixed with the same volume again of partially rotted woodchip. This gives the compost the correct nitrogen/ carbon mix and is an ideal environment for the microbes to thrive.  In the first instance, compost from a garden compost heap is also being added to boost the microbial content and help the culture establish.

Once the Rocket has been successfully permitted, then catering waste will be imported to the site.  It is expected the waste will be more challenging than the cooked waste that is currently being collected at County Hall and will contain a higher content of cook and raw meat products.  This material will need to go through a macerator/ de-waterer before being added to the Rocket but providing the particle size is small enough and dry enough and well mixed with other materials, there is no reason why it should not compost just as effectively as a banana skin. 

For additional information on the process and technical specification of the in-vessel composting unit, please go to http://www.furniturenow.org.uk/composting_pilotphase.html

Further updates and technical information will be made available on this website in the near future including a short video with interviews with the composting operatives. 

Furniture Now!'s free food waste collection and composting scheme has its first ‘customers’. The Cafe at the Needlemakers, and Le Magasin on Cliffe High Street, have both joined the scheme. Using an environmentally friendly electric vehicle, Furniture Now!'s two Compost Operatives, Ken Gurr and Max Brownrigg, take the food waste for processing in a special facility near County Hall in Lewes.

This is part of the Waste in Action Interreg IVA project run in partnership with East Sussex County Council and Smédar. All kinds of cooked and uncooked food waste will be collected for free from businesses around Lewes until the end of March 2011. Data will be collected from businesses regarding the ways they usually deal with their waste and this will be used to gain valuable information for the future.

FN’s findings will also be shared with Smédar to help with their future projects.