Grind2Energy™
Transforming Food Waste from Environmental Challenge to Renewable Energy Source
Transforming Food Waste from Environmental Challenge to Renewable Energy Source
Every bag of garbage we throw in a bin creates a swirl of impact on some of the pressing challenges humanity faces today: environmental conservation, climate change, public health and energy resource depletion. Over the past several decades, we’ve made progress in reducing the impact of our waste. Most of us recycle metals, plastic and paper. But food waste remains a substantial challenge. The United Nations estimates that we waste 1.3 billion tons of food every year – about one-third of the food that we produce globally. And various studies show that less than 5 percent of this food waste is recycled today.
With our Grind2EnergyTM initiative, we are helping forward-looking businesses and organizations to realize substantial reductions in food waste by using this process. With the scope and scale of food preparation conducted in supermarkets, restaurants and stadiums, these industries represent a huge recycling opportunity.
In recent years, InSinkErator® conducted pilot food waste recycling programs in Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Tacoma, Wash., to gauge the impact of food waste disposer use combined with anaerobic food digesters at wastewater treatment plants. Across the five cities, the pilot programs yielded a 30 percent reduction in food waste on average. The results from early commercial and municipal adopters demonstrate the power of disposers to dramatically improve a substantial environmental concern.
Case Study
Sendik's, a grocery chain with 11 stores in Wisconsin, says that their food waste recycling efforts with Grind2Energy will have significant benefits in the coming years. Learn how.
Through our InSinkerator® division, we are driving advances to develop more sustainable food waste solutions at the commercial, municipal and household levels. It all starts with a simple fact: food waste that is finely ground by disposers degrades more quickly and effectively as part of waste water than it does sitting with other solid waste in a landfill.
