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31 professionals from municipalities and utilities, as well as a handful of ARGO employees, followed in the footsteps of food waste on a sunny day in June. In order to learn more about food waste, the yield and with a view to greater knowledge sharing, ARGO invited them on a trip to ARGO's new unloading building for food waste, the Gemidan pre-treatment plant and Solrød biogas plant.
The day started with coffee and a brief overview of the construction of the new food waste unloading building (KOD) on ARGO's site. Berit Nielsen, Project Manager at ARGO, reviewed the function of the unloading building, which has two unloading gates and a track for loading large trucks with food waste for further processing at the company Gemidan.
Everyone had the opportunity to view the inside of the building and watch the crane distribute the food waste from one silo into the 'big silo'. The unloader building can reload up to 500 tonnes of food waste per week.
Everything below ground on the building, including the silos, is made of concrete, while the above ground facility is made of steel. Quick-closing gates are installed at both the entrance and exit of the building to limit any odors to the surroundings and to limit the risk of pests entering. There is also a water supply for deck and floor washing, with drainage to the silo at the unloading area.
Sorting the food waste
The next stop in today's program was the Gemidan pre-treatment plant in Ølstykke. Tobias Breinholt Hoffmann and Flemming Løvbo, Sales Manager and Operations Manager respectively at Gemidan A/S, welcomed the group at the facility.
Tobias and Flemming gave a thorough overview of the process at the plant. The food waste is run through a bag opener (an auger that twists the bags into pieces) before entering a "pulper" (a large blender), where water is added to the food waste, which turns the collected food waste into a porridge called pulp. The pulp is pressed through a sieve that separates other material that has not been dissolved in the pulp. These include plastic bags that the food waste is delivered in, meat bones from which the meat residue has been washed, ice cream sticks and the stiff stems of roses in flower bouquets. The screened pulp is then transported to the Solrød biogas plant.
Digging cow with food waste in the hallway at Gemidan
Solrød Biogas Plant converts pulp into gas
After a short lunch break in the Risø field, the tour continued to Solrød Biogas Plant, located next to the Køge Bugt highway in Solrød.
Here, Jacob Wagner Jensen, Biomass Manager, welcomed the group with a brief introduction of Solrød Biogas. Jacob also mentioned the demand for natural gas due to the ongoing energy crisis.
After the short introduction, Jacob gave a thorough tour where he explained that the pulp from Gemidan is pumped into large fermentation tanks where it is treated together with manure and other organic waste, such as residues from food production.
In the fermentation tanks, the organic material is broken down and converted by bacteria that produce biogas. The process leaves behind a degassed residue consisting of water, poorly degradable organic material and plant nutrients, including phosphorus. It is transported in large tankers directly from the biogas plant to farmers who use it as fertilizer in their fields.
From food waste to biogas
Biogas that has been purified to natural gas quality can be sent into the natural gas grid where it can be used like other natural gas in industrial processes, for heating or compressed and filled into tanks as fuel for heavy transportation. Biogas consists mainly of the combustible gas methane, as well as CO2 and water. For the biogas to be sent to the natural gas grid, the CO2
and water must be extracted.
According to ARGO's tender requirements, all biogas from ARGO's food waste must be upgraded and sent to the natural gas grid.
Goodbye and thank you for today
After the tour, the bus took the group back to ARGO in Roskilde, where they said goodbye and thank you for today.
More information and food waste and other recyclable waste
Click here to read the leaflet about sorting food waste and other recyclable waste