Every year, 18.5 million tons of food scraps from grocery stores, food service facilities, and other institutions end up in landfills. Emerson’s (NYSE: EMR) InSinkErator™ business helps colleges and universities, high-capacity stadiums, and commercial facilities in a multitude of sizes keep food waste out of landfills through Grind2Energy™, its large-scale food waste recycling system. InSinkErator has reached a significant milestone in its ongoing mission to stop food waste from ending up in landfills. Recently, InSinkErator celebrated diverting 100 million pounds of food waste from landfills through Grind2Energy.
Using powerful grinding technology from InSinkErator, the manufacturer of residential garbage disposers, the Grind2Energy recycling system captures and processes food waste into energy-rich slurry, which is held safely in sealed tanks before it can be transported to nearby anaerobic digestors located at farms or wastewater treatment facilities. Anaerobic digesters extract methane gas and convert energy-rich slurries into renewable energy, and the remaining materials can be used to make nutrient-rich fertilizer. To date, the renewable energy created from the Grind2Energy energy-rich slurry is enough to power more than 10,000 homes for one month; the amount of CO2 reduction by diverting waste to landfills is the equivalent of 83 million fewer automobile miles driven, and the potential amount of nutrient-rich fertilizer created is 5.7 million pounds.
Whole Foods Market, a global brand known for sustainability and an early adopter of the Grind2Energy system, said it plans to expand its use of the system. To date, Whole Foods has been a significant contributor to this milestone by diverting over 25 million pounds of unavoidable food waste from landfills through Grind2Energy.
