At Crabapple Community we aim to live as sustainably as we can and to be self-sufficient in produce for at least some of the year. We use the house and grounds as a venue for groups and courses (eg permaculture, community arts activities) and by hosting gatherings in our camping fields.

We currently have a small digester that is used for cooking, tea making and enriching the soil in the polytunnels, and it’s been so successful that we are raising money to invest in a larger digester to provide bio-gas for heating, hot water and more cooking. We plan to fuel our digester by collecting food waste from local restaurants, the Berrington Hall Housing Co-op and the events held at Crabapple Community. We need to raise £10,000, and the £3,000 we are aiming to raise here would really help us on our way.

Digesters turn food waste into methane and create a gestate which is amazing feed for plants, allowing us to use food waste to create not only a source of gas for heating and cooking, but also an amazingly wonderful fertilizer to feed our crops.

Once we have the new digester up and running anyone who is interested in bio-gas can come have a look (by appointment) by contacting crabapplecom@hotmail.com

For more information visit www.diggersanddreamers.org.uk/communities/existing/crabapple-community

For more information on bio-gas and digesters please visit www.methanogen.co.uk