Plans have been revealed to grow fruit and vegetables using "cleaned" carbon dioxide in greenhouses above a landfill in what it is claimed will be a "world first". The landfill in Wiltshire is run by Crapper & Sons Ltd, which is currently waiting to get planning permission for the project.
The company already captures methane coming off the waste to power its operations and send energy to the national grid, as well as producing CO2. Having now started a community interest company called Sustain Wiltshire, it has said it wants to use the site to grow food for the local area all year round.
The plans involve using greenhouses on the site to take advantage of CO2 and heat to produce food such as avocados, which are not usually grown commercially in the UK. The produce would then be sold to people living in the local area in towns and villages such as Royal Wootton Bassett, Malmesbury and Brinkworth.
Project Director Nick Ash said there are other similar projects across the world but the specific Wiltshire one is a world first. "What comes out of the top of the gas engine [the one already generating energy] is quite clean CO2. In Europe, that's already used in greenhouses, so we would get that into our greenhouses."
Read more at BBC
