For more information:Tanya Pinsoneault
414-227-2241
tpinsoneault@c-k.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASENEW STUDY WILL MAKE PEOPLE THINK TWICE ABOUT HOW THEYDISCARD FOOD WASTE
Processing food scraps at wastewater treatment plants results in less global warming
potential than landfills
RACINE, Wis. (August 11, 2011) – Consider the apple core. From an environmental
perspective, what’s the most responsible way to dispose of it, or a banana peel, or any
food waste?
A new study about the impact of various food waste disposal systems has shownthat putting it into a garbage disposer results in lower global warming potential thanputting it in the trash and sending it to a landfill. That’s a key finding of the Life Cycle
Assessment (LCA) commissioned by InSinkErator, a division of Emerson, and theworld’s leading manufacturer of food waste disposers.
As set forth in the report, if a community of 30,000 households (the size ofNewport Beach, Calif.) switched from sending food scraps to the landfill to using adisposer instead, the reduction in global warming potential would be the equivalent ofeliminating nearly 2,100 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This is akin to eliminating
about 4.6 million miles of car traffic.
According to the EPA, landfills are a major source of methane, a greenhouse gas
at least 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Because food scraps are a significant
component of waste that municipalities send to landfills, diverting it for recycling into
resources is becoming a major goal of cities worldwide. Enter food waste disposers,
which pulverize food scraps and send the resulting slurry to the various wastewater
treatment systems evaluated in the LCA.
Many advanced wastewater treatment plants can convert food scraps into
renewable energy through a process called anaerobic digestion. At these plants foodscraps can also be turned into fertilizer products, also known as biosolids, which can help
build healthy soils.
-more-

New Study Will Make People Think Twice About How They Discard Food Waste
Add One“The LCA confirms a multitude of research and validates that food waste
disposers are more than just convenient – I like to think of them as an environmental
appliance,” said Tim Ferry, president, InSinkErator. “After people look at theenvironmental benefits of using disposers instead of landfills, we think they will becompelled to bypass the trash can and put food scraps down the disposer instead.”
LCA Goes Further, Extends Understanding
Unlike studies that review and compare competing products, the LCA assesses
the environmental impact of the four primary systems for managing food scraps –wastewater treatment, landfills, incineration and advanced composting. Camp Dresser &McKee (CDM) conducted the initial analysis used by PE INTERNATIONAL, Inc.
(formerly PE Americas) to produce the LCA following ISO 14040 standards, including
review by an independent panel of experts.
The LCA analyzed several critical environmental impacts: global warming
potential (trapping heat that would otherwise pass out of the earth’s atmosphere),eutrophication potential (excessive vegetative growth in bodies of water from highconcentrations of nutrients), acidification potential (increase in the acidity of water andsoil), smog formation, and the energy demands associated with each system.
The report states that food scraps processed through a wastewater treatment
plant with anaerobic digestion and cogeneration (e.g., San Francisco, Milwaukee andmany others) can even result in a reduction of global warming potential. It also
concludes that processing of food scraps at these advanced wastewater treatment
facilities has lower energy demand – less than landfills, incineration and centralizedcomposting.
“In thinking about systems for managing food scraps, wastewater treatment
systems are often overlooked despite their surprisingly effective role in turning liquid
waste into valuable resources,” said Michael Keleman, senior environmental engineer,InSinkErator. “Composting is good but it isn’t the only option.”-more-

New Study Will Make People Think Twice About How They Discard Food Waste
Add TwoMore information about the study and the InSinkErator environmental story isavailable at www.insinkerator.com/green
About InSinkErator
Headquartered in Racine, Wis., InSinkErator, a division of Emerson, is the world’s
largest manufacturer of food waste disposers and instant hot water dispensers. For more
information about InSinkErator, visit www.insinkerator.com.
About Emerson
Emerson (NYSE: EMR), based in St. Louis, Missouri (USA), is a global leader in bringing
technology and engineering together to provide innovative solutions to customers inindustrial, commercial, and consumer markets through its network power, process
management, industrial automation, climate technologies, and tools and storage
businesses. Sales in fiscal 2010 were $21 billion. For more information, visit
www.emerson.com.
###