Food Waste Technology

There is an increasing awareness of the problem of food waste and new technologies are emerging to combat it that garden centre restaurants can make effective use of with disposers and digesters now banned.

Tumblebug’s Ecobot can dry food waste overnight, reducing the volume by up to 90%, producing an output that is a dry, stable, odourless mixture like compost.

Andrew Rowney of Tumblebug explained how it works: “The output from an Ecobot is rich in nutrients, and while it is still classified as ‘waste’, and cannot be sold as compost or fertiliser, it can be used as a soil conditioner to improve growing in your nursery and the garden centre grounds, or given away to customers, local growers or the local council."

"Tumblebug is also undergoing trials with UK partners to prove the value of dried food waste as a feedstock to pyrolysis, which, when combined with other organic waste, produces biochar that can be mixed to produce a high-performing growing medium to replace peat in the next generation of compost and fertilisers for commercial and domestic growers.”