The Dagenham facility, located on a newly developed site within the London Sustainable Industries Park, is a combination of in-vessel composting and anaerobic digestion technology. The facility, which can process up to 50,000 tonnes of organic waste each year, generates approximately 1.5 MW of electricity. That's sufficient to power around 2,000 homes, together with heat for use within the plant and eventual export.

The anaerobic digestion plant at Dagenham has been specifically designed for food waste with an upfront separation of organics from non-digestable materials such as paper, glass and plastics. A two-stage anaerobic digestion process is followed by down-stream pasteurization of the digestate, so that the production of fertilizer meets the stringent PAS110 criteria.

Dagenham marks the second facility commissioned by UTS Biogas and TEG Environmental; the first is co-located facility in Perthshire, Scotland.

“This second plant is testimony to our confidence in the benefits of co-located organic waste technologies,” said Mick Fishwic, TEG chief executive. “Combined anaerobic digestion and in-vessel composting sites offer front-end reliability of acceptance and flexibility on feedstock, enabling us to process a wide variety of waste streams including food waste only, green waste only or co-mingled organic waste. In addition, they produce natural organic fertilizer for use on the land and also valuable energy from waste which is fed into the national grid.”

Dr Mike Bullard, managing director of UTS Biogas Ltd, recognised the team of TEG Environmental and UTS Biogas engineers and technicians. "They have worked very well together to ensure that this flagship plant has been built and delivered on time and on-budget,” he said. “We expect this plant to draw visitors not only from the United Kingdom but world-wide due to its location, size and strategic importance in a global environment that needs sustainable solutions for both energy and waste.”