Los Angeles County recycling food waste into renewable vehicle fuel

The Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, which is an organization consisting of 23 independent districts serving over 5.7 million people in 78 cities and unincorporated territory within Los Angeles County, announced Dec. 1 that it has started up a biogas purification system to recycle food waste into renewable vehicle fuel.

This food waste includes dinner scraps and spoiled fruit and vegetables from commercial businesses including grocery stores and restaurants.

"We've been converting food waste into electricity for over six years. With this new biogas purification system, we now also produce renewable natural gas that is used to fuel vehicles like cars, buses and trucks. We know that many cities are grappling with how to meet state requirements for recycling food waste and are pleased to offer a complete and cost-effective solution," Robert Ferrante, chief engineer and general manager for the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, says.

The districts' food waste recycling program consists of several parts. Waste haulers collect food waste that has been placed in separate bins by their customers. The loads of food waste are delivered to the districts' Puente Hills Materials Recovery Facility in Whittier, California. At the Whittier facility, the food waste is loaded into specialized equipment that removes contaminants like plastic bags and food utensils and blends the food waste into a slurry.

The county then transports the slurry to its wastewater treatment plant in Carson, California. Waste haulers that have their own processing equipment can also deliver slurry to the Carson plant. The slurry is added to the plant's digesters, which are large, sealed tanks where microorganisms convert food waste and wastewater solids into biogas. 

The biogas is used in two ways. Some is sent to the districts' power plant located at the Carson facility where the biogas is converted to electricity that runs the treatment plant. The remaining biogas is sent to the new purification system to make fuel-grade renewable natural gas. The purification system is capable of producing the renewable natural gas equivalent of 2,000 gallons of gasoline per day. The renewable natural gas is dispensed at the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts’ nearby fueling station that is open to the public. 

"Because the [Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts] manage both solid waste and wastewater, we already had most of the infrastructure needed for food waste recycling. We also received a grant from the California Energy Commission that helped fund the new biogas purification facility. As a result, we were able to complete our system relatively inexpensively and pass those savings onto our customers," Bob Asgian, head of the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts’ Solid Waste Management Department, says. "Use of our system has been steadily growing, and we have additional available capacity to help more cities."