Under the leadership of Councilmember Kevin McCarty, the City of Sacramento has begun a one-year pilot project to collect food scraps from residents in the Elmhurst neighborhood, and turn the food into fuel.
The Recycling and Solid Waste division will collect food waste in the same container as yard waste and deliver it to Republic Services. Republic will separate the food from the yard waste, weigh all materials and transport the food scraps to Clean World Partners. Clean World Partners will use a digester to process the food into fuel, which the City uses to power several of its garbage trucks.
“I initiated this pilot project because food waste and organics are a large portion of the City’s waste going to our landfill,” says Council member Kevin McCarty. “Recycling this food waste and turning it into fuel moves our City toward being greener and smarter.”
“This voluntary program will provide the City important data that will help inform future waste disposal efforts,” says Steve Harriman, the City’s Integrated Waste General Manager. “ We’ll learn the makeup of the types of food and yard waste that will be collected so we can plan for the appropriate types of facilities that could efficiently convert Sacramento’s unique food-yard waste mixture into fuel or other reusable products.”
The pilot will be conducted for one year. Make sure to follow Food to Fuel!