Tampa residents turn food waste into energy » Yale Climate Connections

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This year, some residents of Tampa, Florida, have been on the hunt for manure. It’s an unlikely quest for city dwellers, but they need it for their new anaerobic biodigesters.

Lewis: “So it’s basically like a very advanced kind of composting system.”

Shelby Lewis is Tampa’s waste diversion and outreach supervisor. She says the city got a USDA grant to supply 100 residents with these backyard systems.

Each unit takes up about as much space as a picnic table. To set it up, users add manure and water to create a bacterial colony.

After that, they just need to add food scraps, and the bacteria break them down.

The process creates a liquid fertilizer people can use in their gardens, as well as cooking gas they can use with a special stovetop burner that comes with the package.

Lewis: “So they can plug that into the system and they can cook with the gas that was created from the breakdown of the food.”

… instead of conventional natural gas, a fossil fuel.

Online, people with backyard biodigesters are sharing tips and tricks for using the systems – and their enthusiasm for repurposing food waste.

Lewis: “Really it’s about taking that waste out of the trash and getting a better and higher use for it.”

Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media


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