This is a two-in-one tour.

Waste Management of New England (WMNE) is working with the Greater Lawrence Sanitary District (GLSD) to operate an advanced recycling facility to convert food waste into a renewable energy source. WMNE’s Boston CORe® facility located in an industrial area of Charlestown, this operation processes food waste into an EBS® organic slurry using WM’s proprietary CORe® process. All processing of organic waste takes place within a fully enclosed facility designed to mitigate odors, noise and other environmental impacts. The EBS® is then delivered to GLSD’s waste water treatment plant, where it is added to the plant’s anaerobic digestion system to increase the production of biogas. Biogas is used for on-site co-generation of green energy and heat for utilization at the GLSD waste water treatment plant. The Boston CORe® recycling facility marks a significant step forward toward the Massachusetts’s Department of Environmental Protection’s (MassDEP) long term sustainability goals of recycling organic waste and increasing the use of renewable energy.

The City of Cambridge operates a curbside organics program for 30,000 households, 14 schools, 75 food-service businesses, and 6 drop-off sites. The City collects from stops in commercial districts during the 11:00 p.m.–7:00 a.m. shift, then the residential collection staff take the same trucks to collect from 7:00–11:00 a.m., and then drop-off at WM. The City collects more than 8–10 tons per day using three 25-yard rear-load Mack packers. The carts we use are 12-gallon Orbis bins for up to two household buildings, 35-gallon Rehrig carts for up to 15-unit buildings, and 65-gallon Rehrig carts for larger buildings and commercial stops.

This tour has a non-refundable $10 registration fee. Attendance is capped at 28 people, so register now! If you are already registered for WASTECON and would like to add this experience to your registration, click here to update your registration.