Youth Innovation Challenge

Small-scale Waste to Energy

Vanessa Fiore and Adam Wali

The challenge topics our project will be addressing are the reduction of air pollutant emissions and the diversion/reduction of food waste. We are proposing an innovative, all-in-one device that converts food waste into biogas, and biogas into energy, to create electricity to power businesses. The device will convert food waste to biogas with the help of anaerobic digesters, which will then pass the biogas through several stages to yield energy.

We are currently targeting grocers who, with the help of our device, will have the potential to run on a closed system that will allow them to produce electricity from their waste and not require them to have an external source of energy.

1. Innovation – The existing Waste to Energy (WTE) facilities are limited to large industrial facilities, resulting in inequitable access to WTE waste management systems. Our solution is taking a rapidly growing sector of energy production and scaling it down, making it more accessible and increasing sustainability to benefit the businesses implementing it. The innovation behind our device lies in scaling down a large process and creating an all-in-one device that addresses food waste at the source of the problem.
2. Impact – By allowing grocery stores to produce their own energy out of their food waste, our device will eliminate the organic waste that would otherwise be sent into landfills, ultimately contributing to the reduction of air pollution and the diversion of food waste. Additionally, our device will allow businesses in the grocery industry to become fully energy independent, drastically reducing their carbon footprint and allowing them to showcase corporate social responsibility.
3. Feasibility – The current solutions targeting food waste, WTE facilities and organic waste management, are inefficient and underfunded. Our device, on the other hand, can be implemented across North America and is inexpensive (C$5000). It solves the issue of food waste at the source as it is compact and can be easily incorporated into a business. It will allow businesses to profit from their own waste by taking responsibility for it, easing the burden off of the government.
4. Replicability/Scalability – The governments of each North American country recognize air pollution and food waste as being two major issues affecting our world and are always looking for new innovative ideas to tackle these problems head on. Our device does this, as it can be easily applied to operate in any part of North America—it will be the same device replicated for every grocery store. The process of converting the food waste into energy will be identical, regardless of the type of food waste or where the device is operating.

ROCAPET - Sustainable Structural Concrete

Ernesto Alonso, Tilo Daniel Hernández Cadena and José Luis Hernández García

ROCAPET arises from the idea of using PET (polyethylene terephthalate) in the construction industry to make use of a waste material that, in Canada, Mexico, the United States, and other countries, has yet to be used extensively in the sector. This new approach to building will contribute to reduced pollution and the preservation of other materials.

ROCAPET sustainable structural concrete is suitable for buildings of all kinds: commercial offices and industrial, educational, cultural and athletic facilities, as well as housing and other lower-weight constructions. ROCAPET enables lean construction with a durable compound that offers significant savings plus a resistance to compression similar to that of concrete: a specified compression strength (f’c) of 150 at 350 kg/cm².

The use of this material addresses the serious problem of postconsumer PET pollution and contributes to the reducing the overuse of sand and gravel, whose extraction, processing and transportation emit carbon and other gases into the atmosphere. By reusing PET as a raw material in construction, replacing stone aggregate at a certain rate, first reduces and redirects thousands and thousands of tons of postconsumer PET per year, so that waste driven by runoff and rains do not end up in the rivers and oceans, where their components (dioxins and phthalates) are released, affecting the health and stability of the most vulnerable species. Second, it supports the preservation of two nonrenewable natural resources (gravel and sand), mitigating the negative environmental impact of their extraction and transport.

This innovative proposal seeks to take postconsumer PET—an extremely abundant material whose waste is harmful to the environment—and treat it through nontoxic, mechanical processes, turning it into a raw material suitable for use in construction. Recycling PET this way will have a direct and favorable impact on the environment, not only by decreasing waste in soils, rivers and seas, but also by reducing the pollutants produced in the extraction, transportation and manufacture of other materials.

We found that this to be viable in a model in which a construction firm and a PET company work together: their value chain is supported by local scavengers and community collection associations to manufacture and market the concrete, thereby sharing the social and economic benefits with their collaborators while benefiting the environment. Our business model is easily adaptable and reproducible at any scale, as the proposed PET treatment methods can be used to easily make concrete with locally available traditional materials.

Restaurant Waste to Superfood Powder

Kristian Krugman and Reyanne Mustafa

Introduction: Soulfull is a company dedicated to providing nutrient-rich products that are healthy both for our bodies and also for our environment by reducing food waste while minimizing our carbon footprint.

Problem: Each day 27 million pounds of food are being wasted in restaurants. Soulfull is a start-up venture whose founders became frustrated by the amount of food thrown away every night from restaurants, so they decided to do something about it. Much of the food being thrown away each night is untouched, rich in nutrition, and a staple ingredient in many products.

We soon realized that protein products currently on the market are items with the same ingredients being thrown away at restaurants every night. Fortunately, because of the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, federal law protects restaurants for any goods donated.

Jackpot: We began formulating our superfood protein product line: bakery items, protein powder, crackers, and other delicious snack items derived from viable, untouched food surplus from restaurants. Our first product offering will be a line of baked goods that comes from the food waste of donated juice pulp from juice bars, and whole grains (brown rice and quinoa) from local restaurants.

The founders are also deeply passionate about finding sustainable ways to feed the homeless. A unique aspect of our solution is that for every item that is sold, we will donate an equal amount to food relief organizations that work to alleviate hunger across the country.

We chose San Diego as the fertile ground in which to build a successful model that we can easily replicate in other major metropolitan areas around the world. The key to this success is that we foster strong relationships with the key suppliers (our restaurants and juice bars) in which we are perfecting the sanitary, safe pickup and delivery system between our partners and to our commercial kitchens. Once this system is perfected, it can easily be set up in other major metropolitan cities.