Savin Engineers was retained by Waste Management to design a Pilot Scale facility to test the co-digestion of municipal sludge and food waste. The pilot testing was a public private partnership between Waste Management and NYC DEP.
The food slurry is prepared at Waste Management’s Varick Ave. transfer station utilizing a proprietary process. The food slurry consists of school cafeteria waste and Green Markets waste. Ten tons of waste is processed each day, yielding approximately 4,000 gallons of food slurry. The food slurry is then trucked to Newtown Creek WWTP to a Savin designed receiving station, where it is transferred to a holding tank. The slurry is then injected into the egg shaped digesters. The Varick Ave. slurry production facility is now capable of processing up to 500 tons/day of food waste, producing 200,000 gallons of slurry per day. The design included slurry processing facilities, transfer pumps and a holding tank.
At Newtown Creek, the new receiving station includes; unloading area, transfer pumps, a new 180,000 gallon storage tank, odor control integration and process control instrumentation. From the storage tank, there is now capability to transfer the food slurry to the wet well that feeds all 8 egg shaped digesters.
In addition to preparing the design documents for both the pilot scale and full scale facilities, Savin undertook all the permitting and the negotiation of permit conditions with NYC DEC.
