National food waste recycling business, Keenan Recycling, will be unveiling a first-of-its-kind hybrid vehicle at RWM & Letsrecycle Live this September in Birmingham. This innovative vehicle replaces fossil diesel fuel with a novel blend of hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) and hydrogen gas, resulting in a 98.6% reduction in CO2 emissions.

“We’ve experienced one of the hottest summers ever this year in the UK and it has been a stark reminder that we all need to come together and take action against climate change. Our brand-new hybrid vehicle is one of the many ways that Keenan is moving towards Net Zero and it will be a milestone moment for us when we unveil it at RWM & Letsrecycle Live to the wider sector. Many businesses and organisations rely on us to support their own Sustainability agendas and we need events like RWM & Letsrecycle Live to facilitate collaboration and ensure positive change across the industry,” commented Grant Keenan, Managing Director at Keenan Recycling.

Keenan Recycling will use the vehicle to collect food waste before treating it through anaerobic digestion plants to create renewable gas and power. The process enables the company to extract further economic and environmental value from food waste, rather than it being sent to landfill. This circular economy approach helps to drive greater resource productivity and will help the UK to better address resource scarcity issues in the future.

The vehicle will initially run on a trial basis in Aberdeen. Its inception signals the beginning of a series of actions enshrined within Keenan’s comprehensive Net Zero Transition Plan. The Plan centres on a range of actions designed to decarbonise the business principally through the use of alternative low carbon fuels within its transport fleet – with the ultimate goal of a fully net zero fleet.

RWM & Letsrecycle Live is one of the largest events for the recycling, resource and environmental services sector and will be taking place at the NEC in Birmingham on the 14-15 September.