The “tridimgastro.cz” project of the Energy Financial Group (EFG), which focuses on the separation, collection and recycling of kitchen waste from commercial and municipal producers, is already operating successfully in more than twenty-five Czech cities and municipalities. Thanks to the active approach of residents to sorting, many of them, such as Šumperk, Opava and Kopřivnice, are even gradually increasing the number of collection containers. There are also more and more restaurants, school canteens and catering establishments separating their food waste. Last year, 3 000 tonnes of gastro waste were collected under the ‘Třídím gastro’ service, and EFG estimates that the amount should rise to almost 5 000 tonnes this year. The waste is then processed by the group into biomethane, electricity and thermal energy in a low-emission process.
Almost thirty Czech towns and municipalities are already involved in the “Třídím gastro” project by EFG, which started in May 2021 in Šumperk. “The introduction of kitchen waste sorting in Šumperk was a logical extension of the existing system of sorting usable raw materials. We wanted to make a contribution to a better environment and the ever-increasing landfill tax was also a motivation. The service has already enabled us to deploy around 140 containers for gastro waste and thanks to the high willingness of citizens we sorted a record 178 tonnes of it last year. This year we plan to expand the system further with a target of up to 220 tonnes“, explains Dana Krňávková, Head of the Šumperk Environment Department.
Educational activities in towns and villages within the “Třídím gastro” project also help to raise awareness of the importance of recycling and motivate people to actively participate in sorting this type of waste.
“It appears that our communication campaigns, which we conduct in cooperation with town halls towards the public, make sense. For example, Šumperk addressed local households as part of one of them in cooperation with students from the local high school, which focused on ecology, among other things. Our special domestic collection containers for kitchen scraps were handed out and what belongs in them was explained. Where this campaign took place, the yield of the gastro waste containers doubled. As a result, less gastro waste ends up in the mixed municipal waste stream and the frequency of collection of so-called black bins is reduced, which can help individual households as well as housing associations and homeowners’ associations save money,” says Ondřej Černý, Director of EFG Logistics division.
At the beginning of this year, the residents of Úsov also joined the collection of kitchen waste in the Olomouc Region. In the Moravian-Silesian Region, the number of collection bins in Kopřivnice was increased, which enabled the residents of family houses in all local districts to start sorting their food waste. The “tridimgastro.cz” service, operated by EFG Waste logistic, is used by almost thirty towns and municipalities together with more than 400 catering establishments in Moravia and Silesia, including schools, summer camps and hospitals. Thanks to their involvement, the company collected approximately 3,000 tonnes of gastro-waste last year.
This year, EFG estimates that the total amount of kitchen waste from the “Třídím gastro” project will increase to almost 5,000 tonnes from around 5,000 collection containers. This would further contribute to improving biodegradable waste management in the Czech Republic. Instead of being landfilled, the recycled waste is sent to the EFG Rapotín BPS or EFG Vyškov BPS biogas plants, where it is processed as a renewable resource into low-emission biomethane, electricity and heat.
