Food to Share is a community food partnership that provides unique opportunities to address both food insecurity and environmental solutions. This project, inspired by the Fresno State Food Recovery Network model, will increase access and availability of nutritious food to underserved communities in Fresno County. Additionally, the project will make significant contributions to the improvement of regional air quality, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging waste diversion from landfills for renewable energy production in collaboration with Colony Energy and Caglia Environmental.
Food Diversion & Transformation
Food to Share will also make contributions to improving regional air quality by collaborating with Colony Energy Partners and Caglia Environmental, to encourage diversion of significant amounts of inedible food, green, and agricultural waste (organic materials) away from landfills, into the production of low carbon renewable energy at an anaerobic digester to be built in Tulare County. Buried organic materials decay and release fugitive methane gas, increasing the negative health and other impacts of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in the San Joaquin Valley.
Currently, Colony Energy Partners operates a de-packaging plant at Caglia Environmental’s Cedar Avenue Recycling and Transfer Station (CARTS) in Fresno that separates food waste from recyclable metal, plastic, and paper. Until the digester is complete, recovered food waste will be transferred to feedlots as an animal feed supplement or to the Fresno-Clovis Regional Waste Water Treatment Facility. Once there, the recovered food waste will be used to fuel their digester and aid their limited bio-gas production, which is used to generate electricity that powers the plant.
Food to Share is a unique opportunity to merge both food access and environmental solutions, creating systemic change, which can be replicated in other communities across the state.
