Athens Services adopts new organic waste technology

As cities and businesses work to meet California’s 75 percent recycling goal by 2025, Los Angeles-based Athens Services is meeting the challenge for customers with innovative technology.

According to a company news release, Athens has purchased a machine called an organic separation press (OSP), developed by Komar Industries, a manufacturer of heavy industrial compactors and shredders based in Groveport, Ohio. The installation of the new technology, combined with Athens’ existing processes, will result in higher diversion rates, the company says.

“We’re excited about the potential of this technology to help fill the gap between waste, recycling and clean organics,” says Riel Johnson, director of resource recovery for Athens Services.

According to CalRecycle, an estimated 6 million tons of food waste ends up in landfills annually in California, which is about 18 percent of all landfill waste. California has set targets to reduce organic waste disposal 50 percent by 2020 and 75 percent by 2025, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030. Communities across California are working hard to find ways to meet these goals.

“These higher diversion goals mean attacking more contaminated waste streams, most of which goes to landfills,” Johnson says. “Of the organic matter we receive, 20 to 30 percent may be ‘clean.’ We need to tackle the rest to achieve these new, higher diversion goals.”

Organic waste brought into Athens’ material recovery facility (MRF) in southern California is loaded into the organic processing system. Equipped with a cantilevered auger or drill, the OSP pushes the waste against a hydraulically activated door to squeeze the liquid from the material and into a collection tank.

The nutrient-rich liquid is then loaded onto a tanker truck and shipped to a treatment facility, where it can be digested for energy production or composted to return nutrients to California farm fields.

Los Angeles County officials have conducted several tests and have approved the extracted organic material for such processing, according to the release. The remaining dry material is sorted for beneficial reuse or transfer to landfill.

The machine processes about 40 tons per hour and recovers 20 to 40 percent of the material. Previously, 100 percent of this material was shipped to local landfills.

The OSP combines a Komar compression auger with a specialized dewatering unit, which was developed to process deicing fluids used on airport runways.

“We’ve seen this trend developing worldwide,” says Mark Koenig, who is president of Komar. “The volume of wet waste has been growing, with higher contamination, but there was no technology to handle it. It was simply too dirty and too wet.”

He adds, “Previous efforts to deal with this mixed organic and waste stream have been attempted, but the pretreatment and prescreening it required made the process prohibitively expensive. We looked at how to attack it cost-effectively, and we’ve achieved that.”

Doug Vanderlinden, Komar’s director of municipal projects, says, “We are expecting increased contamination and are building equipment to handle it. Athens understands that this waste stream is growing. Others are talking about the future. Athens is preparing for it.”