DIE WELT (Germany), THE LOCAL (Sweden)
BERLIN – Among the many questions raised by Europe’s spreading horsemeat scandal is what to do with all the products of questionable provenance. Most major supermarkets have simply dumped out loads of horse-tainted “beef” lasagna, and the like. What a waste!
But all’s not lost. A spokeswoman for the German company Tengelmann, whose Kaiser’s supermarket chain found horsemeat in their discount “beef” lasagna, told daily Die Welt that since “these products do not pose a health danger we are disposing of them in the usual way.”
The “usual way” is dumping it into containers where the stores dump spoiled foods or products past their sell-by date, which wind up as biogas! Companies like ReFood and BioCycling collect such containers of leftovers from restaurants and cantines, as well as discarded food products from retailers, make a business of recycling such refuse.
[rebelmouse-image 27086261 alt=”” original_size=”483×364″ expand=1]
ReFood Germany, for example, has 300 trucks that collect 400,000 tons of discarded foods annually, making it one of the country’s biggest providers of this service. At its German biogas facilities ReFood produces enough electricity to supply 7,000 households. Together with its facilities in Great Britain and France, the firm produces a total of 20 megawatts of energy by recycling foods.
Meanwhile, in Sweden, retail chain Ica announced that it was going to deliver recalled products to a recycling station in Ängelholm where they would be converted to biogas, The Local reports.
