Latest news with #GreenEra
CBS News
29-04-2025
- Business
- CBS News
New partnership turns excess food from Chicago area Mariano's stores into compost, natural gas
Surplus food from grocery stores cannot be donated or eaten, so typically, it all ends up in a landfill. But a brand-new program at the Chicago area grocery store chain Mariano's is changing that — and the program is already keeping one million pounds of food from piling up with garbage. For the effort, Mariano's collects fruits and vegetables, prepared food from the hot buffet, and other items that can't be sold or donated because they are no longer safe to eat. "There's some waste that just can't really — isn't really consumable," said Amanda Puck, vice president and communications of brand development for Mariano's, whom Chicagoans may also remember as the original host of the WTTW-Channel 11 program "Check, Please!" That non-consumable food used to end up in the garbage. Such is not the case anymore. "Doing a project like this for us really puts it into perspective of how we can really all make a difference with food waste," Puck said. Now, that food is transported from Mariano's stores to Green Era's campus in the South Side's Auburn Gresham neighborhood, where right on site, it is processed and then converted into natural gas — renewable energy — using a technology called anaerobic digestion. In anaerobic digestion, microorganisms break down the food waste without oxygen — leaving biogas and nutrient-rich compost as byproducts. The biogas is then converted into clean and high-quality renewable natural gas, Green Era explains on its website. That natural gas goes right back into the gas grid. Meanwhile, the compost is used to grow new produce. Green Era is the only anaerobic digestion facility in the Midwest. "We can actually put expired sodas, expired cans into the digester, because it can actually cut through the metal," said Puck. With the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimating that more than 130 billion pounds of food going to waste in the U.S. annually on the retail level, the Mariano's/Green Era program is making a difference. "The biggest message coming out of this is, what can we all do in terms of not wasting food?" said Puck. Mariano's started the program at its store in southwest suburban Evergreen Park (2559 W. 95th St.) in 2023, and later expanded it to the Oak Lawn location (11000 S. Cicero Ave.). Seven Chicago Mariano's and one more suburban store are being added to the program in the wake of its success — West Loop (40 S. Halsted St.), South Loop (1615 S. Clark St.), Bridgeport (3145 S. Ashland Ave.), Edgewater (5201 N. Sheridan Rd.), Ukrainian Village (2021 W. Chicago Ave.), New City (1500 N. Clybourn Ave.), Lakeshore East (333 E. Benton Pl.), and west suburban Westmont (150 W. 63rd St.). Mariano's has already kept 1 million pounds of food out of landfills through this partnership. Green Era and Mariano's noted that 1 million pounds of food waste is enough to fill 30 large dump trucks end to end. A million pounds of food waste diverted also mitigates over 1 million pounds of carbon emissions — the equivalent of taking 116 cars of the road for a whole year. It also generates almost 1,000 MMBTUs, or 1 billion BTUs, of natural gas heat — enough to power 270 homes for a month. A million pounds of food waste diverted further creates 30,000 pounds of clean compost — or enough to grow up to 50 tons of fresh vegetables, Mariano's and Green Era said. "It's a clean sustainable way to fight climate change, grow opportunity, and also build a greener future right here in Chicago," said Jason Feldman, chief executive officer and co-founder of Green Era Sustainability.
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Auburn Gresham's Green Era Campus transforming food waste into energy
CHICAGO — Located in the heart of Auburn Gresham is the Green Era Campus. What was once acres of contaminated land, is now fertile ground for the future as it aims to feed and build up the community. The concept behind the Green Era Campus on West 83rd Street was born about 15 years ago when business partners Jason Feldman and Erika Allen posed the question: 'What can we do with food waste, how can we keep it out of landfills?' Read more: Latest Chicago news and headlines With a team of support, for about a year and a half now, the two have been doing just that on the Green Era Campus. It is the first facility in the nation dedicated exclusively to processing packaged food waste and transforming it into clean energy and nutrient-rich compost. 'We wanted to really demonstrate that in our community not only could we innovate around green tech, that we could be climate change prepared, but also build living growing economies through food waste,' Allen said. Food is the largest form of solid waste in landfills across the country and each year, more than 55 million pounds of food waste from Chicago enters into those dump sites. But with a piece of technology called an anaerobic digestor, Green Era has already diverted 40,000 tons of food waste from landfills, turning that waste into compost and renewable energy. 'When food waste breaks down, it breaks down methane as well, it creates. We capture that methane, and that's actually the renewable energy we produced, inject that energy directly into the grid to create renewable energy to decarbonize the local gas grid,' Feldman said. The State of Illinois supported the campus with a $3M Rebuild Illinois infrastructure grant. Prior to its development, the nine-acre plot of land was a contaminated field. LATEST CASES: Missing people in Chicagoland 'I was here when we did the groundbreaking for this and here we are five years later this is a thriving anaerobic digestor that's making a huge difference in the community,' Gov. Pritzker said. Along with recycling waste, down the line, the Green Era Campus will include an education center and a farm. Currently, 15 full-time employees work here and there are plans to expand that to 30. 'To have some of our staff say to me that their lives have changed because of the work that we do we want to see more of these kinds of projects, we want to see more community ownership,' Allen said. Green Era anticipates eventually scaling up to about 85,000 tons of food waste per year recycled into renewable energy and nutrient-rich compost, taking a big dent out of waste going into landfills. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
