A Holistic Evaluation of Food Waste Co-digestion

New York City DEP is developing a food waste co-digestion program to enhance biogas production utilizing the egg-shaped digesters at the Newtown Creek WWTP. This program is part of broader DEP initiatives to increase renewable energy production and decrease greenhouse gas emissions across all of its facilities. To assist in the development of a sustainable and effective food-waste co-digestion program, DEP is carrying out lab-scale studies and a NYSERDA sponsored pilot demonstration project to determine the over-all effectiveness of food waste co-digestion and its possible impacts on: 1) digestion process performance (i.e. %VS destruction, and gas production and quality); 2) Solids handling operations and total solids production; and 3) over-all treatment plant operations and performance. This paper details the New York City Food Waste program and lab and field studies that are being carried out to inform and shape the program.