Luke Lukoskie and his team at Island Spring Organics have been making tofu on Vashon Island near Seattle, Washington, for nearly 50 years.
Lukoskie: “This year we're going to make millions of pounds of tofu. We're going to make 15 different varieties.
Now, they are using waste from the production process to power the operation itself.
The company is working with Seattle-based energy company Chomp, which installed an anaerobic biodigester behind the plant.
Lukoskie: “Think of it like a compost bin, but it’s enclosed.”
Any type of food waste (in this case, moist soy milk and the remaining liquid called whey) can be put into the biodigester's large, sealed tanks, where bacteria break it down in an oxygen-free environment.
The process produces fertilizer that can be sold to farmers, as well as renewable biogas that can replace natural gas, a fossil fuel, as an energy source.
Lukoskie: “We receive … organic renewable natural gas and feed it into our boiler, which then boils ground soy milk to make tofu.”
Lukoski is therefore able to use the by-products of tofu production to produce more tofu while using less fossil fuels.
Report source: Sarah Kennedy/ChavoBart Digital Media
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