Munchinator reduces trash to compost-like product
By Kathryn Reed
The contraption looks a bit like a sophisticated high school science project as it rocks back and forth, with steam escaping and a slight rumble reverberating in the large room. The Munchinator is at work.
A team of representatives from Carson City-based Ecologico Logic Inc. brought a prototype of their machine from their Southern California offices to South Tahoe Refuse this week to demonstrate how organic waste can be turned into compost in a matter of hours.
Mohammed Memon tells a crowd Nov. 3 about his company's device to breakdown organics. Photos/Kathryn Reed
More than two dozen cans of pine needles and wood products were dumped into a funnel of sorts to enter the presoaking stage before going to the digester.
It took the firm’s research team 10 years to develop the patented naturally occurring microorganisms that breakdown the waste.
Water is added at the start, then it is re-circulated to continue working on fresh waste. The amount of water needed depends on what is being processed. The 2-ton system on display used 300 gallons of water.
It costs about $20 in energy (it runs on electricity) per ton of waste, officials said.
The end product is 20 percent solids, with the rest being water and carbon dioxide. The solid looks like wet pulverized wood chips – with little aroma.
Using this aerobic method to breakdown the waste is cleaner compared to anaerobic organisms that produce toxic gases like methane, hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide.
“The solid is like an organic fertilizer, but it’s not rated as a fertilizer,” explained Mohammed Memon, chief operations officer of Ecologico. “But it’s super nutrient rich. It’s sellable as a growth enhancer.”
He brags of his avocado crop since using the compost in his yard – four harvests a year instead of one.
Ron Cline, director of marketing, said the Munchinator is all about helping the environment. It means less waste going to landfills, which in turn means fewer trucks on the road and byproducts that can be reusable.
Cline said the goal is not to compete with entities like South Tahoe Refuse, but to be a partner. He said his firm has buyers lined up for the solid that the Munchinator produces.
John Marchini, who runs South Tahoe Refuse, isn’t sure his company needs a machine like this because of the chipper they use at the Resource Recovery Center and the ability to sell the end product to users in the Carson Valley.
He said he would be more interested in grinding everyday trash. The state would have to make a ruling if reducing a pile of trash by 25 percent counts the same as diverting it from a landfill.
Marchini’s other concern would be the wastewater if household trash is involved, especially plastics.
The company is giving demos of the system in various cities, but is not limiting the technology to just municipalities.
“We want to take smaller systems to hotels,” Cline said. “We could take this size into cruise ships.”
Although Ecologico is promoting this to get rid of organic waste, it could be used to reduce trash as well as biohazards.
Cline, who lives near the old Meyers Landfill on the outskirts of South Lake Tahoe, said the Munchinator could “process landfill dirt and it would come out clean so you don’t have to truck contaminated dirt.”
Hmm. It looks kind of like a calliope! However, it is this kind of ingenuity that moves us forward. What a great idea.
Bravo and well done to all involved. This machine will revolutionize the environmental industry.
The inventor (actual) should be well rewarded.
Jerry Coon
He brags of his avocado crop since using the compost in his yard – four harvests a year instead of one.
Can you imagine the Pot they could grow with this super soil….
Just a couple of comments.
1) Our product is Made in the USA.
2) We turned 1500 lbs of waste, pine needles, branches, leaves, and food, into 400 lbs of byproduct.
3) At this time our system will process all waste except metals and some plastics.
Thanks to South Tahoe Refuse for letting us share our technology and to Lake Tahoe News for presenting us in this positive way.
Each of us in our own way can take steps to better our environment.
Respectfully,
Ron Cline
Director of Marketing
Ecologico Logic, Inc.
So this machine could basically take all the waste, “except metals and some plastics”, that now goes into the landfill, reduce it’s volume by 75% and turn it into a useable product? All in a process that only takes a few hours? That sounds pretty amazing to me. Seems that something like this would revolutionize the waste management industry. Aren’t landfills everywhere reaching maximum capacity? I’m also having a very hard time following this John Marchini’s logic. Is he comparing and contrasting this machine with a wood chipper? Would not this machine divert 100% of the trash it could process from the landfill verse just reducing it by 25%? Maybe this is such a totally new paradigm that nobody can relate to it yet. Congratulations to the people who have developed this process. I hope this can help solve the problems of what to do with all the trash we produce.
I contacted the company and after speaking with them found other things their machine can do. One thing, they can process all plastics, food (veggies and meat), soiled news papers, cardboard, tree limbs and grass. They cannot process metals or glass. But I think those two items can and should be recycled. Then they laid the bomb shell on me, their “waste” products are tuned into usable products after it comes from the machine. I don’t know who was the inventor, but who ever it was, did a lot of research. They also told me, they have people interested in their process for other reasons besides trash. NASA was one they mentioned I believe for the moon base. Yes, with the land fills becoming full, and a better way of dealing with waste, I believe this is the machine that will do it.