Clean World Partners Receives $6 Million Grant to Expand Sacramento Waste Recycling Center

GOLD RIVER, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Clean World Partners today received a $6 million grant from the California Energy Commission (CEC) to increase the capacity of its Organic Waste Recycling Center at the South Area Transfer Station, making it the largest commercial-scale, high solids anaerobic digestion (AD) system in the United States.

“We’re pleased to support expansion of this new facility in Sacramento and are excited about its growing influence in the waste-recycling market.”

Clean World Partners on June 7 broke ground on the new facility. The first phase will be completed this summer.

The center initially will convert 25 tons of food waste per day collected by Sacramento-based Atlas Disposal Industries from area food processing companies, restaurants and supermarkets into renewable natural gas. The CEC grant will support expansion of the facility to handle 100 tons of waste per day by early 2013, which will make it the nation’s largest such system.

The expanded facility will replace 1 million gallons of diesel per year with renewable natural gas and produce 2 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year, enough to power 200 homes.

“Clean World Partners is clearly demonstrating that its waste-recycling systems can be used in a wide range of situations,” said Energy Commissioner Carla Peterman. “We’re pleased to support expansion of this new facility in Sacramento and are excited about its growing influence in the waste-recycling market.”

The CEC also provided feasibility funding for the project’s first phase.

“The CEC’s support has been critical to our success so far. This grant will help us quickly expand our newest facility and keep more waste out of landfills while we produce renewable natural gas for clean transportation fuel and clean power,” said Michele Wong, CEO of Clean World Partners.

The South Area Transfer Station center when expanded will divert 36,500 tons of waste annually from landfills.

Also being developed at the South Area Transfer Station is the nation’s first digestion-based Renewable Natural Gas Fueling Station. The Atlas Disposal Industries facility will use natural gas produced by Clean World’s digestion system to fuel the company’s clean-fuel fleet, as well as vehicles from area jurisdictions and agencies.

The fueling station will be powered by renewable energy from the digestion facility. Natural gas produced from the 100-ton per day digestion system would fuel approximately 320 school buses for one year.

The two facilities combined will create 16 long-term jobs in Sacramento and generate more than $1.1 million in annual combined tax revenue for the City of Sacramento, Sacramento County and the state.

Clean World’s Organic Waste Recycling Center is based on AD technology developed at UC Davis to convert food waste, agricultural residue and other organic waste into renewable energy, fertilizer and soil enhancements.

About Clean World Partners

Clean World Partners provides businesses and communities with cost-effective solutions for converting organic waste to renewable energy, soil enhancement products and other valuable byproducts. The company was formed in 2009 and bases its waste recovery systems on a proprietary solution using anaerobic digestion, a technology that converts waste to renewable energy and other valuable byproducts through a biological system with a mix of naturally occurring bacteria. Clean World Partners currently offers scalable, affordable and flexible anaerobic digestion technologies for converting a wide variety of organic waste materials into high-quality biomethane, marketable bio-based products and clean water.