The City of Middletown currently accepts sewage sludge from sludge haulers for its wastewater treatment plant and in the process earns hundreds of thousands of dollars. The anaerobic microorganisms in the plant produce methane gas, which is used to produce some electricity to heat the facility.
Officials are now exploring taking that process one step further by accepting food scraps from restaurants and other food producers, said city Public Works Commissioner Jacob Tawil.
“We can upgrade or enlarge our anaerobic, capture more methane gas, store it and then use it as we are doing now and purchase electric generators so that we can generate electricity and that would be green energy to meet our demand at the wastewater treatment plant,” he said.
Tawil said it could cost as much as $10 million to upgrade the wastewater facility to be able to accommodate food scraps for conversion to methane gas.