Dairy Sector
Dairy farming is one of the obvious places in which anaerobic digestion can make a positive impact. Traditionally dairy farms have generated a huge amount of waste slurry from their animals, too much to spread back onto the land. This has created a management problem, sometimes resulting in spoiled water courses as waste enters streams and rivers. However, with anaerobic digestion there is an opportunity not only to utilise the product as a bio fertiliser, but to reduce its mass while extracting water and energy by way of bio-gas.
In an interview with the BBC a Somerset farmer is quoted as having said “For us, the muck is now as important as the milk,” and goes on to say, “A dairy farm which converts manure into methane gas has increased production so fast it is now making enough gas for 6,000 homes.” This is working proof that anaerobic digestion as a process making a positive use of a natural bi-product of an existing industry and while doing so decreasing the impact of that bi-product on the environment.