FOOD WASTE

We’ve been involved in engineering, development, operations and feasibility assessment for food waste utilization projects since 2011, and our seasoned teams understand the unique needs of these projects, including the handling and management of specific food waste feedstocks such as:

● Food & Beverage manufacturing industry waste
● Source Separated Organic Waste (SSOW) from residences, supermarkets, and other commercial entities
● Fats, Oils & Grease (FOG) from restaurants, fast food establishments, cafeterias

Food waste is the second largest category of municipal solid waste (MSW) sent to landfills in the United States, accounting for close to one fifth of the total waste stream—the equivalent of more than 30 million tons of food waste each year, according to the EPA.

As such, many states and municipalities already have food waste diversion from landfills as a goal due to both landfill space constraints and in conjunction with efforts to meet recycling targets.

As a feedstock, food waste categories have among the highest levels of energy potential compared to wastewater biosolids, animal manures, and other sources—with up to three times as much methane production potential as biosolids according to EPA:

● Biosolids= 120 m³ gas/ton
● Cattle manure= 25m³ gas/ton
● Food waste= 376 m³ gas/ton

By utilizing food waste as a feedstock, anaerobic digestion can greatly reduce the amount of organic waste that would otherwise be incinerated or disposed of in landfills—with produced waste gas converted to clean, renewable biogas.

Diverting food waste from landfills can also protect water quality by reducing toxic leachate that can pollute waterways.

Produced gas can be utilized for both power and heat by employing microturbines, reciprocating engines, combustion turbines, or fuel cells along with heat recovery units that capture and leverage waste heat.

In some cases, high-output facilities produce enough gas to deliver excess generated power to the grid.

With additional upgrading, biogas can be converted to methane and injected as renewable natural gas (RNG) into natural gas pipelines, to achieve additional revenue streams.

ESI’s technical proficiency in gas separation and upgrading includes integration expertise spanning a broad range of gas treating, processing and separation technologies including:

● Activated Carbon
● Adsorption
● Amine
● Biological scavengers
● Bulk media removal
● Membrane
● Pressure swing adsorption (PSA)
● Selexol (Physical Adsorption)
● SulfaTreat/H2S Removal
● Thermal swing adsorption (TSA)
● Water wash
● More

While ESI is technology agnostic, maintaining relationships with virtually all major technology suppliers in the industry, our clients can also benefit from our new partnership with TransTech Energy.

Offering nationwide access to over 300,000 square feet of fabrication facility space and industry-leading custom vessel and equipment fabrication and packaging, TransTech supports our balance of plant (BoP) fabrication requirements for faster projects coupled with superior in-house quality control.