Boiler Bytes: Food wastes helping provide energy source

4,562 views · Published 21 December 2009 · 3:28 · Indexed 23 September 2026

Channel: Purdue University · 2009 · Science & Technology

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Purdue University is helping to power the local water treatment plant with methane generated by food waste from the university's food courts and dining halls.
Food scraps from more than 100,000 meals are ground each week into five tons of a cole slaw-like pulp, also called yack. The pulp is trucked to the West Lafayette Wastewater Treatment plant where an anaerobic digestor breaks it into methane to power two electric generators.

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