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Industrial Uses
Food Waste
Rendering Fats, Oils, and Grease
Liquid fats and solid meat products can be used as raw materials in the rendering industry, which converts them into animal food, cosmetics, soap, and other products. Many companies will provide storage barrels and free pick-up service.
Fats, oils, and grease (FOGS) are also now being collected in more and more areas around the country and being converted by a local manufacturer into environmentally friendly biodiesel fuel. Biodiesel is an alternative fuel produced from renewable resources such as virgin oils (soybean, canola, palm), waste cooking oil, or other biowaste feedstock. Biodiesel significantly reduces asthma-causing soot, greenhouse gases, and sulfur dioxide in air emissions. Along with creating less pollution, biodiesel is simple to use, biodegradable and nontoxic. When produced from post-consumer resources such as used fats, oil and grease (FOG) this process recovers energy and recycles waste oils that are either dumped in landfills or flushed down drains, clogging pipes and causing costly sewer over flow spills.
FOGs accumulate and can clog pipes and pumps both in the public sewer lines as well as in wastewater treatment facilities. Why clog pipes and pumps when you can become more energy efficient by converting the fats, oils, and grease to biodiesel?
Anaerobic digestion
Anaerobic digestion is the process of breaking down organic matter in an oxygen-free environment to generate gas. The gas produced in the process is biogas, a combination of methane and carbon dioxide. The methane can then be burned for energy. The material that remains after digestion (digestate) should then, ideally, be composted aerobically to complete the process and produce a valuable soil amendment and zero landfill waste.
Another benefit of anaerobic digestion, in addition to energy production, is that they require less space than many other large-scale composting methods, making them easier to locate in urban areas. For more information on anaerobic digestion and a case study of a facility that is currently processing food waste visit Organics: Anaerobic Digestion. The California Integrated Waste Management Board describes several anaerobic digestor operations in their report Current Anaerobic Digestion Technologies Used for Treatment of Municipal Organic Solid Waste (PDF) (90 pp, 1.8MB, about PDF). Many of these technologies are not yet used in the United States, but are found commonly in Europe. As the US looks for renewable energy sources the use of these technologies could grow throughout the country.
Resources
Biodiesel: Fat to Fuel addresses the recovery of energy and recycling of waste oils that are either dumped in landfills or flushed down drains, clogging pipes and causing costly sewer spills.
Food to Fuel is a success story about converting recycled cooking oil into fuel that powers generators, commercial equipment, vehicles, and marine vessels.
The Green Plan for the Food Service Industry: Oil and Grease 
provides information for the handling of oil and grease from food processing.
Water & Energy Efficiency in Water and Wastewater Facilities discusses energy efficient equipment, technology and operating strategies.
