Sun Valley Waste Management Recycling Park

Recovering 90% of Organics from Municipal Solid Waste

Food and other organics in municipal solid waste are recovered using our OREX™ organics extrusion technology at WM’s Sun Valley Recycling Center in Sun Valley, California, just north of Los Angeles. The system can recover about 90% of putrescible organics from solid waste using a system of shredders, disc screening separates, magnets, and the OREX, which uses high pressure to squeeze out the food and other organics from the remaining material. The Sun Valley facility diverts up to 300 tons per day or organic waste, which is then trucked to our Rialto Bioenergy Facility in Rialto, California, where it is anaerobically digested to create renewable natural gas (biomethane) and fertilizer.

Remarkably, this system and extrusion technology eliminates the need for consumers to source separate their food waste.  Most residents are notoriously bad at figuring out which bin their food and other organic waste should go in, and they often don’t bother to try—with lots of food waste going into the landfill as a result. An organics extraction system solves this problem by recovering organics from the trash bin and is even more economical than source separation. Waste haulers can eliminate separate collection bins and additional pickup routes, saving considerable labor and fuel costs.

• Project Location: Sun Valley, California
• Startup: 2020
• Turnkey OREX^TM Solid Waste Processing Line