Dive Brief:

• Deputy Mayor Cas Calloway announced that New York City has partnered with Waste Management to convert food waste into energy.

• Organic scraps will be combined with wastewater sludge at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in order to increase biogas production, which will be transformed into renewable gas for household and commercial use.

• Up to 5,200 homes could be heated with the gas, while at the same time reducing greenhouse emissions by more than 90,000 metric tons.

Dive Insight:

The city has created a goal of reducing municipal GHG emissions by 30 percent by 2017; this project will aid in attaining this milestone. With the city receiving a push from former mayor, Michael Bloomberg, to ban organic waste from landfills, the food-to-waste project makes sense as it will create a smart solution to dispose of the tons of waste it stands to collect daily.