The processing plant used to prepare food waste for export suffered a fault 10 days ago.
While various contingency options have been explored, in the short term the oldest food waste is being sent to landfill at Mont Cuet.
This is trying to be kept to a minimum, with around 150 tonnes of food waste being sent there initially.
This equates to around one-and-a-half weeks’ worth of the island’s food waste.
Guernsey Waste’s operations manager Sarah Robinson said they had been processing food waste and exporting it since 2019.
‘We have thankfully only experienced minor breakdowns in the equipment previously, mainly damage to the hardware when items such as rocks to weigh down caddies in bad weather have made their way into the waste stream,’ she said.
‘This fault is more technical and complex in nature and is requiring involvement from several parties to resolve it.’
She said that landfilling some of the decomposed waste was unfortunately necessary to prevent compounding issues with future processing and to ensure there was capacity to continue accepting food waste deliveries.
Currently, islanders are asked to continue separating their food waste from their general waste as normal, as it is hoped normal treatment can be resumed by the end of next week after the fault was identified and arrangements made for repairs.
About 5,000 tonnes of food waste is produced in Guernsey each year, which is exported to undergo anaerobic digestion.
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