UK Supermarket Turns 5,000 Tons Of Meat Into Energy

Written by Jerry James Stone
Published on August 7th, 2009
8 Comments
Posted in Clean Energy, Recycling

It’s an odd week for fuel sources. On the heels of a Mountain Dew powered engine, UK supermarket Tesco is getting flack for turning meat into energy–yah, you read that right.

The food chain is burning 5,000 tons of inedible meat for fuel. The biomass processing is being handled by the Cheshire-based PDM Group. The meat-energy is then used to power UK homes via the National Grid.

In fact, Tesco says they dispose of enough old meat to power 600 homes a year!

While other supermarkets have expressed following suit, as you can imagine this doesn’t sit well with animal rights groups.

Justin Kerswell, campaigns manager for Viva (Vegetarians International Voice for Animals UK), explained in an interview to the Daily Mail UK “It’s a sad indictment of modern life that not only hundreds of millions of animals are killed each year in the UK, but so much meat is left over from greed and indifference.”

Tesco says the practice is better than sending it to a landfill.

I tend to agree…with both. If we have enough meat waste to power 600 homes a year, that simply has to end. But these changes don’t happen over night, unfortunately. I am also concerned that this effort could lead to even more complacency about the waste.

Recycling meat is just not efficient. Producing a burger is a hugely carbon intensive process–and kinda gross. Sorry, I’m a veggie folks.

Livestock makes up about 18% of all greenhouse gasses, more than all forms of transportation combined. We aren’t going to offset that buy burning our burgers.

Source: Daily Mail UK

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8 Responses to “UK Supermarket Turns 5,000 Tons Of Meat Into Energy”

  1. Susan Kraemer Says:
    August 7th, 2009 at 5:31 pm

    You really can’t make earth out of it either by composting like you can with veggies – so though it does sound gross, making energy is probably the best use!

  2. green rebates » Blog Archive » UK Supermarket Turns 5,000 Tons Of Meat Into Energy Says:
    August 7th, 2009 at 6:45 pm

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  3. UK Supermarket Turns 5,000 Tons Of Meat Into Energy | AvailableGreenEnergy Says:
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  4. Joe Palladino Says:
    August 8th, 2009 at 1:43 am

    600 homes seems like a lot, but Tesco serves a huge chunk of the 60,000,000 people in the UK. Waste is always unavoidable to some degree, and things like this are interesting innovations. Imagine how much meat is wasted across the US, despite all effort to be efficient, and what this could do with all of it.

  5. Paul Says:
    August 8th, 2009 at 3:28 am

    Instead of bitching….

    Go ahead and email Tesco your inventory managment solution for predicting future demand, daily, store by store so accuratley no inventory is ever wasted!

    Get in touch with the real world.

  6. UK Supermarket Turns 5,000 Tons Of Meat Into Energy | Ethiopian News Says:
    August 8th, 2009 at 6:55 pm

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  7. Ben Says:
    August 10th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    How about this solution. Just before it expires, freeze it, and give the frozen meat to the local food bank for consumption. Its good PR for Tesco and it makes the vegetarians happy. Win-Win

  8. Bryonia Says:
    August 11th, 2009 at 3:47 pm

    Uhm.. how do you economically burn tainted meat for fuel without using more fuel to burn it? Do you dry it first?