Anaerobic digestion plants are the way forward

Waste disposal plants which also generate electricity and create fertiliser could be located at every town and city in the UK, according to ministers.

Instead of sending waste food to landfill, where it breaks down releasing carbon into the atmosphere, sending leftovers to anaerobic digestion plants helps reduce the amount of landfill waste, generates electricity and produces fertiliser.

Anaerobic digestion plants, where waste is broken down by bacteria into biogas, could be built all over the country, reports the Times.

Following a visit by environment minister Joan Ruddock to one such plant in Ludlow, she said that the waste-to-energy system was "the way forward".

She even enthused that a plant the size of the Ludlow facility could fit onto "any industrial estate anywhere in the country".

"Anaerobic digestion is extremely attractive. Why would we go on throwing food waste into holes in the ground when we could generate our own electricity and end up with a product that can be returned to the soil?," she told the Times