Convert your food waste into renewable energy
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — Food waste is a common part of our everyday lives.
“It’s fairly immoral to waste this much food,” sustainability manager Morgan Bowerman said. “Because we waste all this food while one in six adults in the U.S. are food insecure.”
Morgan Bowerman is the sustainability manager at Wasatch Resource Recovery, a waste management service in Salt Lake City, Utah.
She says reducing waste and feeding the hungry should be our first priorities, but food waste is still inevitable. When it goes to the landfill, it’s harmful for the environment.
“Putting food waste into the landfill is really inefficient use of our resources,” Bowerman said. “All of that food waste is going to break down and is going to release into our atmosphere and create a really potent greenhouse gas. Or we could capture it with anaerobic digestion technology.”
Anerobic digestion refers to breaking down food without oxygen. The process – which happens naturally in a landfill – creates methane, which is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide according to the Environmental Protection Agency. But what if you could take that methane, and convert it to a renewable energy source?