Manteca is now recycling the rough equivalent of 18 Ford-150 pickup truck loads a week of food waste. The city鈥檚 fledging food waste recycling effort that eventually will power Manteca鈥檚 fleet of refuse collection trucks by compressed natural gas produced from the food blended with methane gas at the wastewater treatment plant now involves three schools and six businesses.
Rexie LeStrange who is overseeing the rollout of food waste collection at all schools in Manteca Unified as well as commercial ventures such as restaurants, grocery stores and the city鈥檚 two hospitals that generate a lot of food waste indicated businesses are meeting the challenge. 鈥淭heir food waste is all very clean,鈥� LeStrange said. 鈥淭hey are doing an excellent job.鈥�
Most of the businesses now involved in the food waste collection are in East Manteca. They include Food-4-Less, Grocery Outlet, I-HOP, Mt, Mike鈥檚 Pizza, Chezi Shari at the golf course, and Second Harvest Food Bank. The three schools involved so far are Woodward, 聽Brock Elliott, and Joshua Cowell. The city is currently collecting about 36 cubic yards of food waste a week. A Ford-150 pick-up bed can carry roughly two cubic yards. Cal Recycle during a recent inspection of Manteca鈥檚 efforts noted no other jurisdiction in the Northern San Joaquin Valley has progressed as far as Manteca has. The food waste is currently being trucked to Harvest Power in Lathrop where it is converted into compost.
Once a facility has been put in place at the wastewater treatment plant sometime next year, the city will start producing fuel for trucks. A sorting device is also being out in place at Lovelace Transfer Station where food waste from residential Toters will be separated from other garbage and sent to the wastewater treatment plant.
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