Food and organic recycling center opened by WM

Waste Management of Orange County (WMOC) opened its new Food and Organic Recycling Facility, featuring processing technology that is the first of its kind in Southern California.

Located at WMOC’s Transfer and Processing Center in Orange, the Food and Organic Recycling facility processes food and organics collected from local businesses, and converts it into a material that can be used as a source of energy. Local companies that will be sending organic waste to the WMOC facility include Fashion Island, Olive Garden, Montage Laguna Beach, Irvine Company, Hyatt Irvine and Lucille’s BBQ Grill in Lake Forest.

In the program, separated food and organics are collected at participating businesses. WMOC then picks up and transports the food and organics to the recycling facility where it is processed in a specially designed bio-separator. With this process, all contaminates are removed from organic waste, which is then transformed into an organic slurry that can be mixed with other complementary liquids to maximize its use in creating green energy. While WMOC and other companies have had the capability to compost or convert food waste into a soil amendment through dehydration, this is the first technology in the region that creates an end product that can be used for a number of sustainable applications.

CalRecycle estimates that food waste accounts for nearly 16 percent of the overall waste stream in California, over 6 million tons per year.