Dishwasher converts food into electricity

At last. Health officials have finally found a use for hospital food - using leftovers to generate electricity they sell back to the national grid.

This giant dishwasher just installed at Innsbruck Hospital, Austria, can produce 420,000 kilowatts of power every hour simply by converting unwanted meals into biogas.

The 4 million Euro machine - which deals with 1,350 trays per hour - sells the electricity back to the country's power firms.

"We produced enough electricity to power 100 average households," said a spokesman for the Tiroler Provincial Hospitals group.

We've had lots of inquiries from other hospital groups who are looking for ways to improve their efficiency," they added.