“From Kitchen to Kettle” - the circular economy of waste wood

“Fancy a cup of tea?”

As builders dismantle your old kitchen, removing cabinets, countertops and shelves, its journey begins, though few ever think about what happens next.

In the worst-case scenario, your kitchen ends up in a landfill, where it slowly decays and releases greenhouse gases (GHG). However, if you're close to one of our plants, the best case means that the wood from your old kitchen could be powering your kettle for that next cup of tea.

The journey of waste wood to power

A circular economy keeps resources in use for longer, minimises waste and reduces environmental impact. Let’s take a behind-the-scenes look at how your old kitchen is transformed into renewable energy.

Transportation

That kitchen you’ve had for years can’t be recycled in the traditional sense due to coatings, adhesives and treatments. Instead, it’s taken to a waste wood site, where it’s sorted by type and condition.

Shredding

Next, the waste wood is shredded into small, manageable chips. This step ensures the wood can burn cleanly and efficiently, reducing harmful emissions and maximising the energy released in the form of heat.

From the waste wood site, the wood is transported to one of Evero’s biomass plants, where it’s put through a front end recycling facility, to ensure any additional contaminants like mental and plastic are removed.

Gasification

The waste wood chips are then fed into a gasifier, where they are heated in a low-oxygen environment. Instead of burning, the wood undergoes a chemical transformation called gasification, breaking the biomass into syngas: a clean gas composed of carbon monoxide, hydrogen and methane.

The syngas is filtered and cooled to remove impurities like tar and particulates, ensuring a cleaner and more efficient fuel for energy generation.

Fact: By removing impurities and optimising the syngas for combustion, Evero’s system allows for more effective integration of carbon capture technologies (BECCS), helping to further reduce emissions.

Combustion & power generation

The clean syngas is burned in a combustion chamber, producing heat that’s used to generate steam. This steam drives a turbine generator, converting thermal energy into electricity, which is then fed into the local grid and used to power 125,000 local homes, schools and businesses a year.

Emissions control & carbon capture

Burning syngas releases carbon dioxide (CO₂), but since the wood absorbed this carbon during its growth, it remains part of the natural carbon cycle. In contrast, wood left to decay in landfill continues to release additional greenhouse gases.

Evero’s gasification process already minimises CO₂ emissions, but we’re going further and implementing carbon capture technology to actively remove and store CO₂, achieving negative emissions. Projects like HyNet, will soon enable captured carbon to be stored underground or repurposed into products such as biofuels, driving deeper industrial decarbonisation.

Back to the kitchen

“Fancy a cup of tea?”

New kitchen installed; you flick on your kettle. But now, you know. The energy powering your kettle might just be coming from the very cabinets and countertops that once filled your home.

A circular process at its core

Evero’s process is a prime example of the circular economy in action. Instead of sending waste wood to landfills, we transform it into clean energy - reducing waste and cutting emissions.

As Evero scales up, we’re committed to cost-effective, sustainable solutions that support the UK’s net zero goals. Next time you make a cup of tea, remember - our old kitchen is now part of something bigger, helping power a cleaner, greener future.