By Elizabeth Penney

 

Leftover pizza. Vegetable peels. Chicken bones. The unpalatable stew overflowing garbage cans everywhere is now a desirable commodity with the potential to transform the waste to energy industry.

 

According to the US Composting Council, organic waste—of which food is a major component—makes up two-thirds of municipal landfill disposal. That’s not including the food waste generated by commercial operations, including restaurants, institutions, and manufacturers. In addition to taking up space, food waste creates methane gas in the anaerobic environment created by modern landfill design. This gas and other byproducts of decomposition need to be carefully handled since they are hazardous and potentially explosive.

 

“Methane gas is actually 20 times more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide,” Christian Kasper says. Kasper is the CEO of Harvest Power, an organic waste recycling company based in Massachusetts. “We need to divert food waste out of landfills.”

 

Until recently, recycling has focused mainly on glass, plastics, metals, paper—materials that can be reclaimed or reused. Organic waste, especially food, is the new frontier for recycling initiatives. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, less than 3% of food waste is recycled, meaning there is lots of room for improvement.

 

Key to making food diversion initiatives successful is capacity to handle the waste, since composting or animal feed programs can’t absorb the tonnage. That’s where companies like Harvest Power come in. In addition to composting sites across the United States and Canada producing over 43 million bags of product annually, the company has built three “energy gardens” with a total output of 14.9 MWCHP (electricity and heat). These sites handle 260,000 tons of food and other organic waste by using anaerobic digesters, the same biological process that produces toxic gas when garbage is buried.

 

“We see a huge business opportunity with a lot of ancillary benefits,” Kasper says. “For example, Germany recycles 75% of its organics. They have 7,000 digesters. We have far fewer.” In fact, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions reports the United States had 162 anaerobic digesters operating in 2010, most of those farm-based.

 

Food recycling is becoming a focus for governments, with the result that new regulations requiring food waste diversion have been enacted by a handful of states. A notable initiative was launched in Massachusetts targeting businesses and institutions that produce a ton per week or more.

 

“It’s been in the works for a decade,” John Fischer of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection says of the 2014 disposal ban. “We had to create the capacity and the infrastructure to take the waste.” Producers are offered alternatives, including donating food, composting, using it as animal feed, or anaerobic digestion. In addition, information, site visits, and other resources are provided to help businesses and institutions comply.

 

Anaerobic digestion is of great interest to the state, which hopes that additional facilities will be built to supplement the dozen or so now operating. These are a mix of waste-water treatment plants, small farms, and food manufacturing companies such as Ken’s Foods and Garelick Farms, a large dairy owned by Dean Foods. The state’s goal is annual production of 50 MW of power; present output is 4 MW.

 

Sending food to existing waste-water treatment plants is an option that many municipalities and businesses are exploring. “Adding food waste supercharges digesters and increases methane production,” says James Doucette, director of the state’s Clean Energy Results program. An example is Harvest Power’s Florida energy garden, which mixes food and biosolids from Walt Disney World to produce 7 MWCHP annually.

 

Landfill sites are also a possibility. In fact, Harvest Power is exploring a joint project with the town of Bourne, Massachusetts. Key there, according to Kasper, is negotiating a deal with the power provider who will buy the electricity.

 

Capacity can be a chicken and egg situation, requiring a careful balancing act between timing of infrastructure build and implementing diversion laws. An important element is the permitting process, which needs to be clear and streamlined. “Two years before the ban, anaerobic digesters weren’t even mentioned in our solid waste permitting regulations,” Doucette notes. Strong policy support is also needed to make diversion happen, Kasper says, preferably “regulations with teeth.”

 

When asked the reaction of the enterprises affected by the ban, Fischer reports there were no negative comments received during the input period. “We made the business case for diversion and had the infrastructure in place so they could comply cost-effectively.”

 

Kasper is equally bullish about the future of food to energy. “We’ve raised $45 million in the past 18 months and we’ve got numerous projects in the pipeline.” So far, food to energy initiatives appear to be working all the way around, for municipalities, waste producers, and recycling companies. With 97% to go, the future looks bright for this segment of renewable energy.