The Iowa Society of Solid Waste Operations (ISOSWO) Awards Program annually recognizes premier facilities, projects, programs, and individuals in the Iowa solid waste management industry with well-deserved accolades. At the 2022 Iowa Recycling and Solid Waste Conference in early October, the ISOSWO announced four award winners from across the state. The City of Muscatine Organics Recycling Center was recognized with an Innovation Award.

The City of Muscatine’s operates the Muscatine Organic Recycling Center, or MORC, which is one of three municipally-owned food waste recycling facilities in the US and the only one in the Midwest. MORC uses a turbo separator to break open packaging, separating organic waste from containers and collection packaging for recycling or disposal. The material is screened and discharged into a 35,0000-gallon tank for blending; it’s then injected into the anaerobic digesters that clean the City’s municipal wastewater from organic solids into biogas.

Envisioning and creating the steps in this process was challenging in that there was no playbook to follow and had to be created from scratch. The team worked through the logistics of unloading and staging material, calculating the optimum metered injection rate and the impact it would have on the digesters. The project was in planning and development for seven years and cost just under $2 million to construct. MORC is funded by tipping fees; the projected recovery on capital costs is 10-12 years.

To read the full story, visit https://discovermuscatine.com/city-of-muscatine-organics-recycling-center-recognized-with-innovation-award/.
Author: Discover Muscatine

 

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