Turning Food Waste Into Renewable Energy
California’s SB 1383 is a bill that requires a 75% reduction (up to 27 million tons) in Organic Landfill Waste by 2025. Enforcement of the new law started in 2022, meaning municipalities and waste haulers started facing fines for landfilling organic waste earlier this year. This is where BioStar comes in.
Using anaerobic digestion, the San Bernardino Waste-to-Energy project converts pre-consumer food waste into renewable resources that not only diminish solid landfill waste, but reduce organizations’ carbon footprint, and help achieve increasing sustainability goals.
Recovered resources such as clean industrial water, organic liquid fertilizer, biogas and electricity will aid in meeting California’s requirements. BioStar’s patented backend process creates nutrient-rich, carbon-based, organic, food-grade fertilizer, all while generating renewable power, which is delivered to the Southern California Edison power grid via a utility interconnection.
Diverted waste results in significant cost savings and reduced tipping fees for haulers, food waste generators and municipalities. BioStar Renewables manages and facilitates all aspects of the process — from collection and pre-processing to digestion and generation — spearheading long-term agreements that make achieving sustainability goals a seamless reality.
HOW IT WORKS
Beginning in 2020, the San Bernardino Waste-to-Energy project will divert 93,850 tons of pre-consumer food waste from the Cochella and Lambs Canyon landfills each year. As a result, 85,000 gallons per day or 31,025,000 gallons of food waste per year will create:
21,637,200 kWh of Electricity
Power for 200 homes
849,000 Gallons of SuperSix™ Fertilizer
per year
18,250 Tons of Compostable Fiber
per year
19,876,800 Gallons of Clean Water
Industrial reuse per year
Greenhouse Gas Emission reductions equivalent to:
130,826,303 Miles
Avg. passenger vehicle
5,932,598 Gallons
of gasoline consumed
6,084 Homes'
Energy per year
58,093,513 Pounds
of coal burned
*Source: EPA's Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator.