RESEARCHERS at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University have teamed up with an agricultural company to generate power from cheese waste.

About 95,000 tonnes of salty whey is generated in cheese production each year in Britain but its milk sugars and high salt content has long made environmentally friendly disposal a nightmare.

Now, working with space-tech firm Take Root Bio, with support from Scotland’s Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre, scientists have successfully turned salty whey into bioethanol fuel.

Heriot-Watt University waste boffin Dr Jane White said: “Food and drink manufacturing produces a huge range of by-products, many of which still contain valuable components but can be challenging to manage.

“That makes them interesting candidates for bio-based processes that can recover value from materials that might otherwise be treated as waste.”

Take Root Bio founder Kirk Siderman-Wolter said: “We’ve always been interested in what happens when you stop looking at something as waste and start asking what else it could become.

“If we can help turn something that currently costs money to manage into something with real value, that’s a positive outcome for both dairy producers and the environment.”