Getting a huge response from restaurants in the San Francisco Bay area, the Municipal Utility District is successfully generating clean energy from leftovers. Food scraps from about 2,300 restaurants and grocery stores are decomposed at the utility district’s wastewater treatment plant. The methane that is released in the process is further used to generate electricity.
Soaring high on hopes, the utility will sell 5 megawatts of energy to Pacific Gas & Electric Co., and the remaining load will sufficiently power 1,300 homes in the region.
The utility is currently processing 100 tons of scrap per week and is powering 650,000 homes in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. However, at times, the utility discontinues the power supply since contaminants such as forks and plastic bags keep on mixing with food scraps, demanding filtration. This is done via a metal blade that grinds the food scraps and turns them into liquid food waste.
Via: Los Angeles Times