International climate experts tour Bioenergy Devco facility

Bioenergy Devco, Annapolis, Maryland, and its Italian subsidiary, BTS Biogas, welcomed a group of policymakers, industry leaders, technical experts and researchers from around the world to view its facility in Jessup, Maryland, which the company says is the largest enclosed food waste recycling anaerobic digester in the United States.

The tour—a portion of the Global Methane, Climate and Clean Air Forum—was an opportunity for the international group from the Environmental Protection Agency, Global Methane Initiative and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to learn about the ability of community-scale anaerobic digestion to reduce methane and other climate pollutants and to create renewable energy.

Photo courtesy of Bioenergy Devco

“We are thrilled to have hosted such an esteemed group of global experts across the broader sustainable energy and food waste industries and to demonstrate the significant environmental benefits of converting organic waste streams into environmentally friendly byproducts in our Jessup facility,” Bioenergy Devco founder and CEO Shawn Kreloff says.­

The Maryland Bioenergy Center–Jessup processes 110,000 tons of food waste annually, helping to decarbonize organic waste streams in the greater Baltimore and Washington, D.C., region. Anaerobic digestion is a biological process that naturally transforms food waste, such as fats, oils, food processing waste, proteins and fresh-cut produce, into renewable energy and nutrient-rich soil products.

“The anaerobic digestion technology we employ is a completely natural process that helps keep our air, water and soil cleaner while simultaneously returning nutrients to the soil and providing renewable energy,” Kreloff adds.

Unlike most anaerobic digestion facilities in the United States, Bioenergy Devco operates enclosed food waste co-digestion facilities, allowing for multiple waste streams to coexist in the anaerobic digestion process while maximizing energy yield. This technology provides a non-fossil fuel source of energy to power communities while reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane.

Kreloff says the growth of the industry is driven by regulations at all levels within the United States.

“There has been a considerable amount of growth and momentum behind anaerobic digestion driven in part by [an] enhanced focus by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy, as well as new state and federal level waste diversion and methane reduction legislation,” he says. “We will continue to work toward our mission of driving environmentally sustainable recycling of food and other organic waste.”