Up to £6 million will be available over three years to fund innovative projects to treat organic waste.

Funded through the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), the investment will support businesses in the private, public and voluntary sectors seeking to treat organic waste, with a particular emphasis on food waste.

EGovmonitor reports that the announcement comes in the same week that the Scottish public were again urged to ‘‘love food‘‘ and ‘‘hate waste‘‘.

Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead said:

"Dealing with waste sustainably is crucial to the future of Scotland and the future of the planet.

"While our performance on waste has improved considerably, with notable progress on recycling and reducing the amount of waste going to landfill, there is still much to be done to meet our goal of a zero waste Scotland.

"In order for us to achieve this role, we need greater recognition of the significant business opportunities that composting and recycling of materials can present.

"Today‘‘s grant scheme will support businesses investing in waste treatment by funding up to 30 per cent of the costs of in-vessel composting plants, anaerobic digestion plants or thermophilic aerobic digestion plants.

"To hit the ambitious recycling and composting targets that I announced in January, we will need more infrastructure to treat food waste and this grant scheme is part of our work in this area.

"The public too, have a role in dealing with food waste and the Scottish Waste Awareness Group has just relaunched their successful ‘‘Love Food Hate Waste‘‘ campaign.

"At least half of the food we throw away could actually have been eaten, with food making up nearly 20 per cent of the average household bin.

"If we stopped wasting all this food, this could save around 1.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions - the equivalent of taking one in four cars off the road.

"Clearly, organic waste is one of the issues we will need to tackle if we are to achieve a Zero Waste Scotland."

The Organics Capital Grant Scheme is worth £6 million over 3 years - £0.9 million in 2007-08, £2.15 million in 2008-09 and £3 million in 2009-10.

WRAP will provide up to 30 per cent of the capital cost of in-vessel composters (IVCs), anaerobic digesters (ADs) and thermophilic aerobic digesters (TADs). These plants are capable of treating organic waste (garden waste and food waste). By 2011, WRAP aim to have established an additional 125,000 tonnes of capacity in Scotland to treat organic waste.

In-vessel composting breaks down biodegradable waste using naturally occurring micro-organisms with oxygen to produce compost.

Anaerobic digestion is the breaking down of biodegradable waste by naturally occurring micro-organisms in the absence of oxygen. The outputs from AD plants include biogas (which can be used to generate electricity or heat) ; fibre (which can be used as a soil conditioner) and liquor (which can be used as a liquid fertiliser).

Thermophilic aerobic digestion breaks down biodegradable waste using a class of naturally abundant microbes that thrive at high temperature, in the presence of oxygen. It produces solid material which can be used in agriculture and some liquid material which can also be used as a liquid fertiliser.

The Love Food, Hate Waste campaign was launched to raise awareness of the environmental and economic significance of food waste and provide practical advice to householders on how to make the most of the food that they buy.

This campaign is a key part of the work ongoing to reduce food waste and achieve the targets set out in the Household Waste Prevention Action Plan (Scotland) to reduce the amount of food waste from Scottish households