Recycling Food Waste

How do Leftovers Become Energy?

When you use a food waste disposer and send food scraps down the drain to a wastewater treatment facility, you keep waste out of landfills and help lower greenhouse gas emissions. But that's just the beginning…

Wastewater facilities feed the food waste and other organic solids to microscopic organisms that are used to treat wastewater. During this digestion process, methane gas is produced. Treatment plants can capture the biogas and, in turn, use it to generate renewable energy to power the facility—resulting in savings for customers.

Then, once the wastewater treatment process is completed, any residuals—also known as biosolids—can be turned into fertilizer or soil conditioner for use in agriculture and home gardening.

Food is Fuel

The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District encourages residents to use disposals and send food waste down the drain to the local wastewater treatment facility where methane generated from the waste is captured and converted into energy—saving consumers approximately $2 million a year. Download PDF