UAE-based facilities management (FM) company Farnek announced it is composting 125kg of food waste per day, at its staff accommodation centre, Farnek Village. The resulting compost is then used to grow salad plants in the building’s vertical rooftop garden, helping the company to close the loop.
The composter was commissioned by the company to celebrate World Environmental Day and has a capacity of 125 kilos. The machine processes all types of organic waste such as curry, rice, bread, eggshells, chicken, mutton, fruits, vegetables, peelings and other kitchen waste.
“All of the food waste from the staff dining hall is emptied into food waste bins. These are wheeled over to the composting machine, which uses special microorganisms to break down and decompose the organic waste. The process only takes between 24-36 hours and it reduces the original volume by 80-90 percent, so we end up with around 12-25kg of nutrient-rich fertilizer,” said Nadia Ibrahim, Head of Consultancy & Sustainability at Farnek.
“It is comforting to know that while we are serving meals to our 5,000 staff, we are saving up to 400 kilos of carbon and around 200 kilos of food waste every day,” she added.
Farnek said it arranged for a team of experts from Urban Ponics in the Netherlands to fly into Dubai to set up the rooftop garden and nursery and construct a 200sqm ‘shade house’, which provides a blend of shade and light to create suitable conditions for shade-loving plants to thrive with green shade netting, grow pods, lava buckets, misters, pumps, water tanks, irrigation and drainage pipes. According to the statement, the produce is being grown using internationally recognised, sustainable methods including the use of vertical farming columns for a “mistponic” application, which is by far, the most sustainable soil-less growing technique, as it uses up to 90 percent less water than the most efficient conventional hydroponic and aquaponic systems.