Anaergia to Build a Food Waste Recovery Facility for Waste Management Near L.A.

Anaergia Inc. has reached an agreement to construct a waste organics facility at Waste Management site in Sun Valley, Calif. This project is designed to recover food waste from Los Angeles’ municipal solid waste stream.

Anaergia will build a solid waste processing line at Waste Management’s Sun Valley Recycling Park. This processing line will feature Anaergia’s organics extrusion press (OREX), a technology that recovers organics from contaminated municipal solid waste through high pressure extrusion. The OREX line will be used to extract up to 300 tons per day of organic waste from the Los Angeles municipal solid waste stream. The Sun Valley facility is expected to begin operations in 2019.

The organic waste diverted from the solid waste stream will be processed at Anaergia’s Rialto (Calif.) Bioenergy Facility. Using Anaergia’s anaerobic digestion technology, the organic waste will be converted into renewable electricity, renewable natural gas and fertilizer. A portion of the renewable natural gas can be used to fuel Waste Management’s compressed natural gas trucks.

Anaergia’s Rialto Bioenergy facility will utilize its high solids wet anaerobic digestion system. This facility is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions up to 220,000 metric tons of CO2 each year.

“This technology expands our capability as a leader in organics recycling and sustainability by recovering organics from the waste stream and meeting the current and future organics diversion needs of Los Angeles” Larry Metter, area vice president for Waste Management of Southern California, said in a statement.

“Working together with Waste Management is an important step in our Company’s mission to recover value from waste streams. The project will introduce leading-edge organics recovery technologies to Los Angeles that will enhance recovery of organics, renewable energy, and fertilizer,” Anaergia CEO and Chairman Andrew Benedek said in a statement.