Driving food waste down

My office staff take great delight in reminding me as frequently as possible that I'm not as young as they are, I'm sure it happens in just about every workplace in the country similarly, my greying hair, my inability to stay awake past half past ten, listening to radio two (and remembering the tunes) snoring when on weekends away mountain biking and having pictures of Barry Sheene by my desk rather than some scantily clad "Girl Aloud".

I'm happy to let them have their moment though, as on many occasions I make a point of letting them know exactly who's boss.

Hannibal Smith, cigar smoking, grey topped, head honcho of the crack "fix it" A -Team. That's me.... and I let the lads know it, "I love it when a plan comes together", I live for the days I can say that to the office.

Fantastic....... they haven't got a clue what I'm on about.

I've had one of those days this last week...

Rocky's had the fortune of working with a county council and a not for profit enterprise. The project was for the NFP to compost the council collected food wastes, process it at their site, use the material for growing and re-use by the council. The council really have worked hard on this food waste project, invested and spent a lot of time talking compost, they really should be credited.

Problem being, the composting site doesn't quite exist. It would do, but it needs a lot of money to make it so. Imagine an area the size of a swimming pool, now put it on the side of a hill and fill it with grass. That's kind of it. The money's run out, we're struggling now and food waste composting is looking bleak in the short term.

Enter stage right: "Howling Mad" Murdoch we'll call him for all those who know who the A team are.

Mr Murdoch works for a huge construction company and he meets with Mr T from the council. Mr M asks Mr T; "we're building you this massive by-pass for you over the next several years, but we want the construction project to be as "green as possible" but we're struggling with one item, food wastes, is there any way the council could collect or recycle our food wastes" ?

T:"We could collect your food wastes, but we've got a proposal for you.... We've been working with a social enterprise that needs the basics of a site building, you build me a site, I'll get the food wastes collected and a social enterprise will compost it and use it for a growing project, how's that for a suggestion?"

M: "Brilliant, Growing what ?"

T:" Ohh, local plants, shrubs, things like that"

M:"Could they grow us seedlings and saplings to plant by the by-pass?"

T: "Ohhh yes"

" I love it when a plan comes together".... I had to say it.

A multinational construction company, helping out a social enterprise, composting food waste from the construction project, growing in the compost plants that will be used in the by-pass landscaping, a heart warming story about food wastes and collaboration if ever there was one.


Rocky and .....

Oil' be outside, composting

I’m as averse to paying the price at the pumps for the diesel and petrol my cars take as the next man, but most recently my brand allegiance changed and I’d like to tell you why.

It was a chilly late 2008 morning and I was travelling my usual country lane route to work, I was doing my best to duplicate the stunning run through the Welsh Rally special stage 12 by Marcus Grönholm in his Ford Focus, only I was just that little quicker, when Terry Wogan (my co-driver) interrupted his commentary to let me listen to the 8 O’clock news. The headline this morning “Oil Company announces 13Billion Profits….” Only my driving skill avoided what could have been a triple summersault through a hedge and over the Timbersbrook Vicarage vegetable plot.


I can think of 13 million ways 13 Billion pounds can be spent. I was not happy.

However, it would appear that there are some very “Eco Minded” individuals in the big Oil companies these days, long gone are the days of JR Ewing, Bobby and Crystal investing the oil companies’ profits in new shoulder pads and Stetsons.

I’m quite happy to say, that I’m helping “JR” spend my contribution to his pump profits, on food waste recycling projects.

The task on hand for Rocky and the team - the supply of food waste recycling equipment to an Oil Exploration site.

This particular site has 6 smaller sites, each of these sites with a cafeteria or refectory that the oil workers eat at, the food wastes are collected from each of these six sites and transported to a centralised site where the wastes will be combined as one and composted. Excellent idea!

We spent a fair amount of time discussing how the composters would work for them, how the machinery would look, who they could talk to about their opinions of composting, the types of food waste collection buckets we would use and what we’d do with the compost afterwards. Everything was carried out by email and very, very briefly by telephone – as my foreign language abilities stop at being able to order a large beer in a German bar and ask where the toilet is after I order one too many.

The site for composting these food wastes? Georgia, as in - the Baltic State of.




When the order arrived at Rocky HQ, I have to say I was a little speechless. We conducted all investigation without ever even seeing a bucket of food waste let alone a handful of compost. This was no small composter either.

The amount of trust bestowed upon my investigation and correspondence was huge. But they have taken me at my word and gone with the idea.

Now I’ve changed brand of Petrol and diesel, I know it all comes from the same place, but I buy slightly happier in the knowledge that this time my money might be going someway to helping repair some of the damage we’ve done to this very precious planet.

As a parting comment, if this can be envisaged, organised and implemented, in possibly the last place on earth you’d expect, why the heck isn’t more of it happening here at home?

Rocky