Eco-tip: Pilot programs preview potential progress for recycling food waste
Breakthrough technologies and innovative programs often start as pilot projects. When the project serves a public purpose, public agencies sometimes provide incentives.
Two upcoming events, coordinated by the Ventura County Recycling Market Development Zone, provide examples and show public agency support on the city, county, state and federal levels.
The first event, Tuesday at 3 p.m. at Lineage Logistics in Oxnard, will include a tour of an anaerobic digester, which will be at the heart of a pilot program to turn food waste into energy and a precursor to compost. Anaerobic digestion is not new, but the scope and scale of this digester are new. Biodico, the digester operator, will handle local waste streams, including fish processing waste, produce packing house waste and food waste from restaurants.
The project, in coordination with UC Davis and with primary funding from the California Energy Commission and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is innovative because anaerobic digestion facilities are typically large, with high initial capital costs, requiring regional participation to reach minimum tonnage requirements.
This small-scale facility is intended to demonstrate the viability of using the technology for a facility that will be easier to site, permit and manage. If operations are successful and financially viable, this model could help provide the infrastructure necessary for California businesses and local governments to meet food waste recycling mandates set by the state Legislature as part of a strategy to combat climate change.
Food waste not diverted through recovery, composting or digestion such as with this project instead rots in landfills, where it emits methane gas, which is many times more powerful than carbon as a climate changing agent.
The Recycling Market Development Zone, which I administer, provided assistance with permitting and planning and funded testing of key waste streams Ventura County needs help keeping out of landfill. Ned Spang and project coordinator Elizabeth Castner, both of UC Davis, conducted the testing using seed digestate from nearby Gill's Onions.
The second event will be at Manna Conejo Valley Food Bank on Earth Day, April 22, at 9:30 a.m., and it also features a tour of equipment being used for a pilot project. In this case, the equipment is a retrofitted kitchen, set up to “rescue” prepared food.
With funding from the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery or CalRecycle, obtained through the Recycling Market Development Zone, this food bank converted its kitchen to handle prepared food, starting with excess food from The Cheesecake Factory, unserved meals from a caterer and food coordinated through the an app. This is significant because food typically rescued by food banks and food pantries is shelf stable food, such as canned food and bagged bread, while prepared food is more often sent to a landfill.
The public is invited to attend these events, but please contact me to obtain a liability release form before arriving at the first event.
Filming of a video is a key component of these events. The videos will be used to encourage more widespread use of small-scale anaerobic digestion and to encourage other food banks and food pantries to collect and serve prepared food. A similar promotional video made for the Recycling Market Development Zone last year, featuring a plastics manufacturer, a pallet reuse businesses. and a composter, may be seen at vimeo.com/792440232 .
The state-designated Ventura County Recycling Market Development Zone program, one of 32 zones statewide, is a partnership including all 10 cities and unincorporated area of Ventura County. Started in 1992, it expanded countywide in 1993.
The program has helped 47 Ventura County businesses secure over $40 million in loans and grants. Most of this funding has come from CalRecycle, which collects fees from landfills for every ton of material disposed in California and collects fees on the purchase of items such as tires and mattresses.
To learn more, visit www.vcpublicworks.org/rmdz.
David Goldstein, an environmental resource analyst with the Ventura County Public Works Agency, can be reached at 805-658-4312 or david.goldstein@ventura.org.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Eco-tip: Pilot programs preview progress for recycling food waste