News

EVENTS

2020 CSAC Legislative Conference
May 27-28, 2020 CANCELED
Sacramento County
https://www.counties.org/calendar-conferences-and-events/2020-csac-legislative-conference

SoCal SWANA Chapter Workshop
June 18, 2020 POSTPONED to October 2020 - Date TBA
Buena Park, CA 
https://socalswana.org/events/socal-swana-chapter-workshop-june-8-2/

Resource Recycling Conference
August 10-12, 2020 POSTPONED to 2021 - Date TBA
Austin, TX
http://rrconference.com/

CRRA 44^TH Virtual Annual Conference and Tradeshow
August 16-20, 2020 
http://www.crra.com/conference

Waste Conversion Technology Conference
August 17-19, 2020POSTPONED to August 16-18, 2021
San Diego, CA
https://wasteconversionconference.com/

CEAC Policy Conference
August 19-20, 2020
Sacramento, CA
https://www.ceaccounties.org/meetings-and-events/conferences/ceac-policy-conference/

GRANT OPPORTUNITIES

EPA Announces Grant Opportunity for Food Waste Management Projects
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking applications for projects to help divert food waste from landfills by expanding anaerobic digester (AD) capacity in the United States. The EPA anticipates awarding up to $3 million in total AD funding, with individual grant awards potentially ranging from $50,000-$300,000. All applications must achieve one or more of the following objectives: support government programs that seek to use AD to increase their organic waste diversion rates, demonstrate approaches for increasing AD utilization that can be replicated by other communities, and establish new or expand existing partnerships that result in the development of AD capacity. Applications are due on July 14, 2020. To read more, click here.

POLICY AND LEGISLATION

SoCalGas Takes Next Step Toward Offering RNG
Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) announced it and other stakeholders have agreed on details of a plan to offer renewable natural gas to customers and have filed that agreement with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The proposed program would allow Californians the option to purchase a portion of their natural gas from renewable sources. The program is expected to create increased demand for renewable natural gas, which can help increase supply and lower its cost over time. If approved, the renewable natural gas program will be available to residential and small commercial and industrial customers. To read more, click here.

BAC Comments on EPIC Re-Authorization
The CPUC has launched a proceeding to consider whether to re-authorize the $165 million per year Electricity Program Investment Charge (EPIC) program. EPIC funding has helped to better understand the impacts and benefits of new bioenergy facilities needed to meet the organic waste diversion requirements of SB 1383. The CPUC''s proceeding is divided into two phases: the first phase focuses on whether or not to re-authorize the program for another ten years and the second phase will focus on the priority investment areas for EPIC going forward. To read more, click here.

CalRecycle Must Rework Language of SB 1383 Rulemaking Package
The California Office of Administrative Law (OAL) has disapproved a rulemaking package that contains proposed regulations for implementation of Senate Bill 1383. The OAL is calling for more clarity around the proposed actions to establish policies and to require implementation of organic waste diversion programs. CalRecycle intends to resubmit the rulemaking to OAL prior to the new September deadline to ensure that education and outreach efforts to assist local jurisdictions in implementing the regulations remain on schedule. To read more, click here.

NEWS

Lystek: Food Waste-To-Energy Project Shows Positive Results
Lystek International Ltd. announced that its food waste-to-energy demonstration project in Goleta, California, has been showing positive results. The project takes source-separated organic (SSO) food waste from the University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB), pre-processes it using a de-packaging technology and then digests it in anaerobic digesters. One of the project''s primary goals is to validate that SSOs can be de-contaminated to an acceptable level for AD.  The project also aims to verify the amount of biogas production potential of SSO processed material. To read more, click here.

About the 2019 Food Recovery Challenge National Award Winners
Los Angeles County Public Works was named one of the winners of the United States Environmental Protection Agency 2019 Food Recovery Challenge Award. The national award recognizes the County''s ''Scrape Your Plate'' pilot program that was launched in 2017 at the agency''s headquarters in Alhambra, California to collect employee food waste and divert it from landfills. LA County Public Works collaborated with LA County Sanitation Districts to use existing anaerobic digestion infrastructure to convert 13,700 pounds of food waste to electricity. To read more, click here.

Madison Starts Taking Food Scraps at Drop-Off Sites
After a successful curbside food scrap collection program that started last year, the city of Madison, Wisconsin has started accepting discarded food scraps from residents at three new drop-off sites. The collected food scraps will be sent to the Gundersen Health System biodigester and used to produce electricity. The city will be placing strict limits on what is acceptable in their food collection program to the reduce contamination of plastics and hard food waste, such as corn cobs or peach pits, to prevent clogging of their processing equipment. To read more, click here.

Los Angeles County Co-digests Food, Sludge to Make Transportation Fuel
Since 2014, Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts (LACSD) have been researching ways to co-digest food at its wastewater treatment plant to produce renewable transportation fuel. The fuel will be sold at its public compressed natural gas (CNG) station and possibly injected into the pipeline. LACSD has also built a preprocessing plant at the materials recovery facility adjacent to the closed Puente Hills landfill in order to offer preprocessing to customers. The Puente Hills facility takes in almost 30 tons of food waste per day to create a slurry that is taken to the Joint Water Pollution Control plant in Carson. To read more, click here.

Fremont Digester Turns Food Waste Into Energy, Fertilizer
The Fremont Regional Digester in Michigan is turning commercial food waste into energy and producing fertilizer for local farmers. Biofilter equipment was recently installed to control odors. Last year, the digester received almost 20 million gallons of organic waste and currently produces enough electricity to fuel the facility and 2,500 households. The nutrient-dense digestate is temporarily stored onsite before being trucked a few miles away to two 10 million-gallon lagoons, where it can be picked up for free by local farmers. To read more, click here.

First-Of-Its-Kind Clean Hydrogen Plant Planned for Los Angeles County
Energy company Solena Group has announced a deal with Lancaster officials to make hydrogen by using plasma gasification to disintegrate the city''s paper waste. The company hopes the plant will be producing hydrogen by late 2022. The city will expedite Solena''s permitting process and send the company its paper waste, rather than paying to dump it in a landfill. Hydrogen can be used to replace oil and gas for transportation or heating, and gasification is a cost-effective way to produce hydrogen. To read more, click here.

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