McCain chips away at emissions

Chip-maker McCain wants to extend its investment in renewables but may be hampered in doing so by nimbyism, its Corporate Affairs Director told BusinessGreen.com.

At its Whittlesey plant near Peterborough, the company is already providing 70 per cent of one factory's emissions needs through renewable power.

Some 60 per cent comes from three 3MW wind turbines installed in 2007, while a further 10 per cent of power comes from an anaerobic digestion lagoon which was opened last year.

The £5m lagoon was opened in 2008 and produces biogas from the factory's waste water. The water moves through it over a period of 27 days, fermenting and producing methane.

The methane is caught, drawn off and used to fuel a gas-powered electrical generator.

Corporate affairs director Bill Bartlett said the company would like to introduce the measures at its other four factories in the UK, but has run into problems.

"We're considering anaerobic lagoons and wind turbines at the other plants but it's not as easy as it was at the Peterborough plant which is isolated," he said. "People often don't want these things in their back yard, and we respect that."

McCain has taken a number of other environmental measures over the past few years that have been easier to achieve.

The firm used software to reduce the journey distances of its truck fleet by 20 per cent a year by more efficient route planning, while sourcing all its potatoes from UK producers sited as close to the factories as possible.

The company also invested in heat recovery systems at its Scarborough site, which recovers waste heat from the fryers and uses it to heat water used in the preparation process.

And it operates three scaled-up pilot farms which look at how soil erosion and pollution affects the local environment and air quality in the Midlands Hereford area.