FDBusiness.com

A £10m Loan Fund that will help finance anaerobic digestion (AD) infrastructure across England has been introduced. The fund aims to lend up to £10m over the next four years, with individual loans of between £50,000 and £1m.

“The Loan Fund builds on the Anaerobic Digestion Strategy and Action Plan to develop a strong and vibrant AD industry. It will help to reduce the amount of food sent to landfill and give more businesses the opportunity to use AD to produce their own power and electricity,” explains Defra Minister Lord Henley.

The fund for the first round of applications is open until October 31st 2011. The fund has been established by WRAP in England to address the gap in anaerobic digestion processing capacity that currently exists for food waste.

”Across the UK, there are now AD facilities capable of managing 656,500 tonnes of organic waste each year, diverting waste from landfill, generating renewable energy and creating green jobs. The 300,000 tonnes of extra capacity we expect this fund will create will bring the UK’s AD processing capacity close to 1 million tonnes per year,” comments Marcus Gover, director of the Closed Loop Economy at WRAP. “AD is a reliable, safe and profitable resource efficiency process supported by Government, industry, local authorities and communities.”

There are currently 25 AD sites in England which take in food waste, including from industrial processes.

WRAP has a finite loan pool and will select projects for funding through a competitive process, with those applications most strongly meeting its criteria being offered a loan. For more information visit www.wrap.org.uk/funding.