More than 700 litres of moonshine seized before Christmas is to be fed, along with sewage, into anaerobic digesters at the water company’s Alfreton treatment works. The digesters produce methane, which is used to generate electricity.
The confiscated whisky, vodka, rum and gin was found to be tainted with industrial chemicals and unfit for human consumption, meaning it could not legally be poured into the sewers.
Vicky Levine, customer operations manager for Derby, said: “It’s a really good feeling to be able to help out trading standards in this way by recycling all this alcohol and put it to such good use on an environmental level.”
A recent study by the Office of Fair Trading found there was potential for a competitive market to emerge in organic waste treatment. As well as using digesters to process sewage sludge, water companies could bid for local authority food waste contracts, for example. However, the study identified regulatory barriers that first needed to be overcome.