News & Notes: Lawrence Township company aims to ferment University food waste
Daily Princetonian StaffTwenty tons of food waste from University dining halls could be sent to a plant in Lawrence Township, N.J., each week to be cycled through a new waste handling process involving mass fermentation, The Times of Trenton reported on Friday. Local startup company AgriArk has made a deal with the University to use University food waste in the development phase of its efforts to establish a food waste processing plant in Lawrence, according to a proposal AgriArk has filed with Mercer County. Using Japanese fermentation technology that decomposes food waste in an acidic, anaerobic process similar to that used to make kimchi and other pickled vegetables, AgriArk’s industrial homestead would turn food waste into solid and liquid fertilizers that could be sold back to the University. AgriArk hopes to have permits by the end of January and a functional site up and running by the spring, the Times reported.
