Tag: organic waste

Harnessing Energy From Food Scraps

Leftover broccoli, unfinished hamburgers, wilted salad… sounds like a stinky mess… but it also has the potential to generate electricity. A new power plant fired up this week and you won’t find any coal or natural gas fueling its generators. This plant is powered by leftovers. Tamara Keith reports:

Transcript

Leftover broccoli, unfinished hamburgers, wilted salad… sounds like a stinky mess… but it also has the potential to generate electricity. A new power plant fired up this week and you won’t find any coal or natural gas fueling its generators. This plant is powered by leftovers. Tamara Keith reports:


The Biogas Energy Project on the University of California Davis campus is the first real-world demonstration of a new technology that could change the way we think about trash.


Food scraps from San Francisco restaurants are loaded into large sealed tanks where bacteria go to work, converting the food into fertilizer and releasing hydrogen and methane gas. That gas can then be used to fuel cars, or create energy using a generator.


Dave Konwinski is CEO of Onsite Power Systems Incorporated, which operates the plant.


“We’re burying all this organic waste in landfills, but every one ton has enough power to provide the heat for 10 homes, so the numbers are staggering how much energy we can make.”


Konwinski says he hopes to make the trash to power system commercially available early next year.


For the Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

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Epa Tightens Rules on Slaughterhouse Waste

It takes a lot of work to turn a cow or chicken into a hamburger or chicken nuggets. And the process creates a lot of waste. Now, the Environmental Protection Agency is aiming to reduce the pollution that’s released into rivers, lakes and streams. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

It takes a lot of work to turn a cow or chicken into a hamburger or chicken nuggets. And the
process creates a lot of waste. Now, the Environmental Protection Agency is aiming to reduce
the pollution that’s released into rivers, lakes and streams. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Rebecca Williams has more:


The EPA estimates meat and poultry processors use 150 billion gallons of water every year.
Most of that water becomes wastewater. That wastewater can contain oil, blood, manure, and
feathers.


If the wastewater isn’t treated, organic wastes and nutrients are released directly into waterways.
Excess nutrients can cause harmful algae blooms, and kill fish.


The new rule targets about 170 meat and poultry processors.


Mary Smith directs a division of the EPA’s Office of Water.


“The meats industry will have to meet tighter limits on the pollutants that it discharges to the
water. And then, of course, for poultry, this is the first time they will be regulated at all, they
didn’t have preexisting regulations, unlike the meats industry. And they will have to meet limits
for ammonia, total nitrogen, and what we call conventional pollutants.”


These regulations are a result of a lawsuit against the EPA, settled 13
years ago.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Commentary – Reducing Backyard Waste

With Spring upon us, the weather has allowed us to spend some time planting in the garden and cleaning up the yard. But did you know that yard waste accounts for about fifteen percent of total household trash? Great Lakes Radio Consortium Commentator Bob Lilienfeld tells us how to reduce organic waste coming from our lawns: