Ecogas receives Provincial Growth Fund support

Ecogas has received a multi-million dollar boost from the Government's provincial growth fund.

Seven million dollars will help develop a project which aims to see New Zealand powered on the food we waste. 

A new demonstration plant is being built in Reporoa, which will decompose waste food and collect the biogas it creates. It'll power the glasshouse at Turners and Growers and produce enough electricity for a thousand homes.

"In the next two or three years, when we're at full scale we've estimated around 75,000 tonnes of organic food waste from both households and industrial sources," says EcoGas spokesperson Stuart Walker.

We waste at least 327,000 tonnes of food each year, making up about 30 percent of our landfill. As the waste food breaks down, it releases methane, a greenhouse gas. But this new project will instead capture that biogas and turn it into useful renewable energy. Even better, the CO2 that would have gone into the atmosphere helps grow the produce.

And there are plans for more sites like it around the country. "We see the potential for up to 21 of these sites throughout New Zealand over the next five to 10 years."