What Is Digestate Management?
Anaerobic Digestion (AD) is a natural process that uses microbes to break down biodegradable materials. It can act as a great replacement for artificial fertiliser, reducing costs whilst adding valuable nutrients to soils and crops.
Digestate is a nutrient-rich “bio-fertiliser” produced by anaerobic digestion. Using digestate as an alternative to bagged fertiliser can save money, improve soils and reduce your carbon footprint.
For the agricultural industry, this offers a unique and hugely beneficial solution for increasing soil health and encouraging the growth of crops.
Whites Recycling has a team of Farm Liaison Managers who will provide you with the most suitable recycling solution for your digestate — as this will ensure the best possible results.
Food Waste to Fertiliser
Whites Recycling works with waste and digestate outlets to supply nutrient-dense bio-fertiliser to our farmer clients. We also offer storage solutions — these can be temporary or permanent stores. We make use of redundant lagoons which allows us to offer our customers a complete digestate management service for all 12 months of the year.
Analysis shows that an impressive 80% of the total nitrogen in food-based digestate is present as readily available nitrogen. This high level of availability means that digestate can be used as a direct replacement for “bagged” nitrogen fertiliser. Digestate contains useful amounts of phosphate and potash, with small quantities of other nutrients and trace elements. Organic dry matter in digestate (typically 3-4%) can improve and maintain soil fertility and soil structure, alongside improving water retention.
The rate and timing of application depends upon the requirements of the crop. A typical application would be 35m3 per hectare. We offer services using the most modern forms of spreading equipment, from umbilical options through to our tractor tankers fitted with the latest GPS technology.
Our full range of services include:
- Total digestate off-take contracts
- Experienced in-house Transport, Storage, Agronomy and Spreading Team
- Haulage from AD plant to store
- Winter contingency storage — we have over 60 permitted stores across the UK
- Digestate spreading — either direct from a lagoon or using a vehicle
- We offer a full range of spreading capability — 12, 24 and 36m applicators with GPS capability
Our top priority is to liaise with our farmers and growers to work to their individual requirements and rotations. Our Agronomy Team carefully monitors all of our operations and activities to ensure we comply with the Code of Good Agricultural Practice, Nitrate Vulnerable Zone and Environmental Permitting regulations.
