Sustain wiltshire growing domes

What is Sustain Wiltshire?

Sustain Wilshire is a radical new approach to the repurposing and reuse of landfill sites to create sustainable energy and heat. Sustain also aims to form a green-food-super-production centre for the local community through its Super-Midden solution.

Sustain wiltshire vegetables growing in growing domes
Sustain’s Mission

Our mission is to deliver sustainable food, energy, employment and living to the local community. Our solution will produce year-round, just-in-time, demand-based fruit and vegetables using advanced technology.

This new initiative was founded by Crapper and Sons Landfill Ltd, a family run business that has been providing landfill and sustainable solutions to its local communities for over 40 years.

Based on the outskirts of Wootton Bassett, Sustain Wiltshire aligns with the core values of Crapper and Sons Landfill Ltd, which is committed to recycling, reusing and repurposing.

What is the Sustain Initiative
Proposing?

Ancient midden
The Ancient Midden

Based on the concept of the ancient midden where waste, including animal dung, would be piled outside homes to break down, providing heat, material to burn and composted biomass, the Sustain Super Midden is designed to turn landfill sites into energy, heat, food, and fertiliser generating centres.

Positively pressured growing domes roundel
Positively Pressured Growing Domes

This is made possible through Sustain’s plans to locate positively pressured growing domes on the surface of sealed landfill cells, using heat and energy produced on site to enable just-in-time, demand-based, year-round fruit and vegetable production.

Powered by methane
Powered by Methane

This Methane gas produced from within the sealed landfill cells is currently collected and safely burnt off. Under the proposed plans, this gas will be used to power engines to generate electricity and heat.

Combined with heat extracted from the landfill site, and power from the on-site energy from waste plant, the positively pressured, inflatable growing domes will be kept at a perfect growing temperature for horticulture throughout the seasons.

Sustainable fertiliser
Rich Growing Environment

CO2 produced as a by-product from methane gas process, will be fed directly into the flexible growing domes to enhance and control the rich growing environment. Aided by low-impact ultraviolet horticultural light to extend the growing season, multi-cropping and year-round harvesting of everything from lettuce to avocados will be possible.

Meeting local demand
Meeting Local Demand

In order to meet the demand locally, Sustain’s solution will see its growing domes produce just-in-time, demand-based fruit and vegetables using advanced modelling technology to manage planting, levels of heat, light and CO2.

Vegetables
Will food grown on a landfill be safe to eat?

Will food grown on a landfill be safe to eat? Yes. The flexible, positively pressured growing domes have been specifically designed to be biosecure and are fully encapsulated.

These will be located on securely sealed landfill cells. These cells are capped by 1/2m of inert material, then 2m of compressed clay, creating an impermeable lining.

In addition to this, a topsoil compost mix is added to provide weather protection for the clay armour.

Within the growing domes, all plants will be grown in raised beds on tables, using soils and compost introduced to the growing domes, or hydroponics systems.

Combined with the encapsulated, impenetrable structure of the growing domes, plants cannot come into contact with the exterior surface of the landfill cells.  This results in a safe, secure and rich growing environment.

Thanks to integrated airlock doors and a constant flow of filtered CO2 and air, any unwanted insects, disease, pollen, pollutants, and contaminants, including any traces of landfill gas, are kept out.

This helps to ensure plant health and biosecurity, without the need for pesticides, allowing for an organic approach to the production of fresh fruit and vegetables, aided by beehives in the growing domes, promoting pollination.

Want to learn more
about how we are achieving this?