A new programme to produce electricity from biogas derived from municipal schools' food waste was launched in Tendo, Yamagata Prefecture in Japan earlier this week, reported The Mainichi.
The city's 18 educational institutions generated about 140 kilograms of food waste per day during lunch over the 2022 academic year.
The leftovers had previously been incinerated, but from the 2023 academic year, local firm Tendo Kankyo Co will take the waste and convert it into biogas.
This will lower disposal costs, reduce carbon emissions from incinerating rubbish and will make use of waste.
On 11 April, the first day school lunches were served for the new academic year, around 70kg of scraps were brought to the municipal school lunch centre, where they were milled and desiccated.
Tendo Kankyo then picked up the waste for biogas production.
The resulting gas will be used to generate electricity at a plant in the prefectural city of Komazawa. The electricity is planned to be sold to a power company.
The plan was inspired by Tendo's declaration in 2022 that it would become a "zero-carbon city."
Hideyuki Honda, vice-head of the school lunch centre, expressed hope that the project would act as a way for children to think about waste issues.
Japanese city’s school lunch waste to be converted into biogas
