Northumberland is set to benefit from a new, high-tech food digester that will provide renewable energy from the county's food waste.
The county council's strategic planning committee approved plans for the new £10 million anaerobic digestion facility at a meeting on Tuesday. It will be built on the site of a composting and wood shredding site on Ellington Road in the village of Ellington, north of Ashington.
Suez has said there is a "national need" to reduce food waste and to put any food that is wasted to good use. The facility will do that by turning food waste from across the region into "reliable, renewable energy" as well as compost-like soil improver.
Suez say it is a "win-win" for communities and the environment. At Tuesday's meeting, council planning officer David Love told members it would provide enough power for 5,500 homes.
Chairman Coun Trevor Thorne was supportive of the proposals, which were put forward by waste management company Suez. He said: "This is a huge investment by a private company £10 million. It is great to see investment like this in infrastructure.
"I do think back to when I was chair of strategic planning 10 or 15 years ago when we had a site visit looking at the facility on Teesside that creates energy from food waste. It was a real eye opener. It gets a big tick from me."
The plans were unanimously approved by the committee. The proposals have come ahead of new Government guidelines which will force local authorities to provide a kerbside food waste collection service. Thousands of households in Northumberland are currently taking part in a trial of the new collection.
Food waste collections becoming mandatory in 2024-25 under the Government's landmark environment bill. In some of the county's more rural areas it would not make economic or environmental sense to send wagons to collect food waste, so an alternative solution was sought that utilities hot compost bins.
