SGL Express Delivery: City Soil Lab

Cross River Partnership are excited to share our case study on the City Soil Lab pre-pilot. 

CRP supported a 6-week pre-pilot of the City Soil Lab, a community-led circular food waste scheme in collaboration with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. 

Food waste was collected from local restaurants by e-cargo bike before being turned into soil for local community gardens, creating better soil for locally grown food. 

Within 6 weeks, an estimated 2,100kg of food waste has been diverted from incineration as part of the pilot. This translates to roughly 1,470kg of CO₂ emissions that have been omitted. 

The project’s pre-pilot also demonstrates the potential to reduce the number of waste truck collection trips when scaled. 

We are very excited to see further roll-out of the pilot over the next few months, including the collection of food waste from flat buildings and local schools! 

Read more about additional community and London-wide benefits of the City Soil Lab project in our case study: https://crossriverpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/SGL-Express-City-Soil-Lab.pdf 

CRP’s support of the City Soil Lab project is part of Smarter Greener Logistics (SGL) a Defra-funded project led by Westminster City Council in collaboration with 25 project partners. The project aims to minimise the impact of freight on noise, air quality, traffic and pavement space in London by making improvements across 14 London boroughs and two London Business Improvement Districts (BIDs).