Executive Chef Bill Lliff adding vegetable scraps to the power knot
We are all more aware of food waste these days and the need for composting rather than adding material to our landfills. When food scraps go to a landfill, the decomposition process produces methane which is much more harmful to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. This in turn contributes to global warming.
The usual practice of composting places food scraps in a container and saving them until you have a batch to put into your own composter or have it picked up by a trash service. While it’s waiting around, food has a nasty habit of decomposing on its own, creating unpleasant odors and attracting unwanted pests. Then, it has to be moved somewhere else to be used in your garden or hauled away.
At the level of a commercial kitchen, disposing of uneaten food is an ongoing challenge. Wake Robin’s daily meal preparation requires hundreds of pounds of food – fruit salad, green salad, soup, animal protein, plant protein, and more. Some food can be re-purposed, such as using bones and vegetable trim to make flavorful stock. In the end, all unusable food waste becomes compost.
The Power Knot screen
We started looking for an alternative almost two years ago. After much discussion and research by the Climate Action Committee (a group of dedicated Wake Robin residents) and approval from the Town of Shelburne, we committed to purchase a Power Knot biodigester.
A biodigester is an automatic composting machine that disposes of food continuously. Think of it as a stainless-steel stomach in which microorganisms digest organic material. Water is injected into the machine to maintain the correct balance of microorganisms while they rapidly decompose the food waste and send it out as wastewater. A rotating arm inside the biodigester slowly churns the food waste to constantly mix the food, oxygen, and microorganisms. New food can be added at any time and the process continues. The only byproducts are carbon dioxide and water from a natural process that is carbon neutral.
The Power Knot is such a welcome addition to our main kitchen that we also put one in the Linden Health Center. Together, the biodigesters process 400 pounds of compost each week. Reduce, Re-use, and Recycle…you can even do it in the kitchen!
