Imagine Utah as home to a voracious beast, able to consume 5 million gallons of food scraps — from rotten lettuce and rancid hamburger to spoiled milk and dirty frying oil. Utah’s first anaerobic food digester revved up in late February and, as of last week, was taking in about 100,000 gallons of food waste a day — one-third its capacity.
It’s still in the fine-tuning “pilot phase,” explained Morgan Olsen Bowerman, the sustainability manager for Wasatch Resource Recovery, which operates the digester. Food waste collection is expected to increase throughout the summer, and the facility should be operating at full capacity later this year. More >>