REDDITCH sewage is no longer going totally to waste after a £700,000 investment to create electricity from it went live at Spernal sewage works.

Severn Trent Water recently switched on a state-of-the-art generator which uses the methane gas byproduct of "sludge digestion" to create enough electricity to power 1,400 homes.

About 35 million litres of sewage pass through the works off Spernal Lane every day, catering for a population of 70,000.

Prior to the generator being installed, the methane was simply flared off.

Severn Trent Water's power generation manager Peter Doughty said: "The heat and power generated through the process is sufficient to export additional power to the grid and generate power for the equivalent of about 10,000 people.

"As well as Redditch, we also convert gas at some of our other large sewage works across the Midlands like Nottingham, Leicester and Coventry.

"These projects contribute towards the Government's strategy on renewable energy, which aims to produce 10 per cent of the UK's energy requirement from renewable sources by 2010."

Redditch is one of just 40 of Severn Trent's sewage treatment works able to incorporate such a generator.

The sewage is heated to 35 degrees centigrade and broken down by bacteria, creating the methane.