How New Yorkers' Food Scraps Get 'Digested' to Provide Gas for Homes

A biogas facility in Dunga, Kenya, takes in the invasive water hyacinth plant and other organic waste, shreds the material, breaks it down with bacteria in an anaerobic digester, and uses the gas produced to provide cooking fuel to locals. The biogas is a cheaper, cleaner alternative to other fuels like wood and charcoal.

To reduce methane emissions, California law SB 1383 requires every resident to recycle their organic waste instead of sending it to the landfill. San Diego residents put their organic waste into green bins to be picked up and composed.

Eversource Energy, a utility company in Massachusetts, installed a networked geothermal system that provides heat for residential and commercial buildings across the city of Framingham. The connected system allows excess heat from one building to be redirected to another that needs it. It’s the first of its kind in the United States.

A utility company in Framingham, Massachusetts, worked with climate advocates to build a unique geothermal heating and cooling project that spans a whole neighborhood. A group of residential and commercial buildings share the infrastructure necessary to harness stable underground temperatures for heating and cooling, which reduces their greenhouse gas emissions and energy bills.

Landfills in the United States are capturing a potent greenhouse gas, methane, that would otherwise be released into the air and converting it to electricity or natural gas.

Orange County, California, is increasing the amount of organic waste it diverts from landfills by encouraging residents to put compostable material in the bins they use for yard waste and composting it.

Local governments in France are educating residents about waste reduction and finding ways to incentivize the behavior change necessary to meet the country’s ambitious zero-waste goals. Roubaix, for example, teaches residents simple lifestyle changes that will also save them money. Whereas, Smicval transitioned from door-to-door waste collection to a central collection point where residents drop off trash themselves.

The grassroots Baltimore Compost Collective is pushing to end the city’s reliance on waste-to-energy incineration and combat climate change by teaching locals the importance of composting, and how it can improve the polluted urban soil to help them grow food.

In an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act uses tax credits to encourage the adaptation of and investment in renewable energy across the country.

Biodynamic farming is slowly spreading across the United States as a practice that improves the health of a farm’s ecosystem by creating a sustainable system that uses its waste to generate its energy. This way of farming also involves practices like crop rotation, cover cropping, and eliminating the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.