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Food Waste Recycling-To-Energy Program Launches in Portland, Maine
With this program, ecomaine hopes to reduce the amount of food waste that is thrown out by Maine residents and businesses.
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On Wednesday, ecomaine’s Portland, Maine, headquarters began collecting and storing food waste for delivery to Exeter Agri-Energy, which turns food waste into methane-rich gas to later produce energy. Currently, food waste makes up nearly 30 percent of the trash collected in Maine. With this program, ecomaine hopes to reduce that amount.
The program will start off servicing commercial customers but according to ecomaine CEO Kevin Roche, there is a high demand for residential services and that may be an option in the near future.
Portland Press Herald has more:
A food waste recycling program launched Wednesday in Portland hopes to trigger the next big advance in southern Maine’s municipal trash business: collection of household kitchen scraps and other organic waste.
Kitchen scraps, expired produce and other food waste make up close to 30 percent of the trash that Mainers throw out, according to a 2011 University of Maine study, and removing these items from the waste stream is seen as a key way to reach a statewide goal to recycle half of the state’s waste stream by 2021.
But the lack of a transfer facility to consolidate and weigh food waste that could then be shipped for processing has prevented efforts to expand food waste recovery in the region, especially from towns and cities in the Portland area.
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