Greener Eynsford Blog
Green news and views relevant to our community
Biogas Powerplant
25th August 2022
The Darenth Valley’s Biogas Powerplant
by Erica Russell on behalf of the Green Team
Visiting a large scale anaerobic digestor is not a usual agenda item for the Parish green team but we were all curious to find out more about the ‘mini powerplant’ that has been built near Horton Kirby. Firstly, what is it?! This particular powerplant is driven by anaerobic digestion. This process relies on bacteria and microbes to break down plant material to create biogas, which in turn can be treated to allow the gas to be used for heating and cooking or to produce electricity. The process also creates biofertilizer than can go back onto the land. Across the UK anaerobic digestors recycle 2.5m tonnes of food waste each year.
The site is large, much bigger than any of us had expected. Oncoland Energy have spent over £10m on the plant and it’s run by a full-time manager and two staff. Initially designed to help spread the risk of fluctuating crop prices the digestor is also helping manage difficult agricultural waste, some of which produces large amounts of atmosphere warming gas – methane. Many of us in Eynsford will be familiar with at least one of the feedstocks used by the digestor – slurry from Bower Lane Farm! But, the site also takes in a lot of waste parts of crops, unwanted/oversized produce, including and rather surprisingly waste pomegranate skins. Carl explained that the site is working hard to develop relationships with local food processors to take on similar materials. The farm also grows some crops themselves to balance the nutrients within the digestor.
Digestor is a good description when thinking about how the process works – the feedstock is mashed and chopped up in a large machine (the mouth), fed into ‘the stomach’ through pipes, with biogas drawn off from the large digestors and then the odourless biofertilizer ‘waste’ is moved out into storage bays, before being used by local farms – very little is wasted.
Treating the biogas is complex and heavily regulated but the site is now producing enough back to the gas network to heat 2500 homes. The plant also has a small generator which, fuelled by biogas is putting electricity into the grid – about enough to light around 600 homes a year.
It was a fascinating visit, and we must give huge thanks to Carl Woolley, the site manager, who gave up his evening to show us around and explain the process.
We came, we repaired, we raised money!
16th June 2022
On Saturday 21st May, Eynsford's Green Team ran their first-ever Repair Cafe at Eynsford Village Hall!
Volunteers had been recruited from the local community to help with repairs including IT, bikes and textiles.
Unfortunately, our hoover repair man was unable to attend at the last minute, so other volunteers 'had a go' instead!
We sold some lovely tea and cake to people waiting for their turn. Visitors were encouraged to make a donation to the new village hall fund http://eynsfordvh.com/wp/how-t... and £150 was raised!
We hope to run the repair cafe again in the autumn and would love to recruit a few more volunteers to give up a few hours to help people to repair their stuff.
Thank you to Chris Lewington for the fab photos.
Repair Cafe for Eynsford
5th May 2022
The Green Team are organising a pop-up repair cafe in Eynsford to help the community reduce waste.
This is an opportunity for members of the community to get their items fixed rather than throwing them away and replacing them with new goods. Repairing and mending old and damaged items is becoming more popular. TV's The Repair Shop has raised interest, although we cannot offer repairs quite to that standard.
The Green Team and other volunteers will be offering simple repairs to clothes, toys and bikes. Residents will be able to see and maybe help with the repair, so that next time they will be able to do it themselves. We will not be offering electrical repairs at this point. If we can't help you, we might be able to point you in the direction of someone who can. Everyone is welcome.
Visible repairs have also gained popularity. The Japanese art of Kintsugi sees pottery being glued back together, but then the cracks are painted with gold. Rather than rejoin ceramic pieces with a camouflaged adhesive, the kintsugi technique employs a special tree sap lacquer dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Once completed, beautiful seams of gold glint in the conspicuous cracks of ceramic wares, giving a one-of-a-kind appearance to each “repaired” piece. Visible mending of clothing is also becoming more popular, with decorative stitches such as sashiko or boro stitching, or embroidering designs around holes to make them into a new feature.
As people start to value the resources that have gone into making their clothes and other belongings, hopefully they will aim to use them for as long as possible, or pass them onto someone else to use.
