Facility produces electricity from restaurant food waste.
The MRWMD has been composting for more than 20 years and began its first landfill-gas-to-energy program in 1983. Opening in February 2013 at the MRWMD, the AD facility employing Smartferm technology from Lafayette, California-based
Zero Waste Energy processes up to 5,000 tons per year (tpy) of source-separated organics from local restaurants, generating 100 kilowatts (kw) of electricity and 2,200 tpy of finished agriculture quality compost. The electricity is sold to a nearby regional wastewater treatment plant to help them achieve their goal of getting off of the utility grid. The compost is sold locally.
“With the development and successful operation of your Smartferm anaerobic digestion composting system you have moved not only your operation but our organics industry forward to a new place,” wrote the CRRA. “Your innovative organics management partnership and operation have provided an exemplary leadership example that we look forward to acknowledging.”
The Smartferm dry anaerobic digestion system’s 21-day batch cycle diverts more than 99 percent of organic waste, reduces greenhouse gases, reduces reliance on landfills and produces a clean, green energy and compost in a closed loop cycle, according to the company.
Smartferm facilities can be designed to develop any amount of organic waste, from 5,000 tpy and up and can include biogas-processing technology for combined heat and power generation for both on-site use and export as well as compressed natural gas to fuel waste transport vehicles.
