Catersource Magazine
February 2011
Butler’s Pantry experiments with a dramatic waste-management technique
It’s not really a miracle, just an extraordinary piece of equipment that converts organic waste to a fluid—water, really—that can be flushed down the drain.
Butler’s Pantry, a full-service catering company in St. Louis, was tapped by a distributor for the ORCA Green, a machine made in South Korea, to help show how it works. “They wanted a working model here in the Midwest,” says Melinda Jackson of Butler’s Pantry. “They looked at our business and saw the potential for the volume to show that it works, and we’ve been a site they can visit with potential clients.”
The results so far: More than 28 tons of organic waste were converted to water during the first six months the machine was in place at Butler’s Pantry. “We’re estimating that about 75 tons could be diverted each year,” says Jackson. Kitchen waste goes into the machine, as well as waste from some larger events. Anything that’s compostable—including some disposable dishware—can be put into the ORCA.
The machine looks like a giant ice bin. Every so often, Jackson says, “you see the clear liquid going into the sewer system. It’s releasing organisms into the system that actually help with the other waste there.” The process, which takes about 24 hours, is “natural” in that it uses environmentally friendly microorganisms to break down the food waste. It operates at low temperatures, so there isn’t any unpleasant odor.
The wastewater created by the ORCA has passed purity tests and Butler’s Pantry says its operation has been approved by both the local sewer district and the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Currently, the ORCA Green is at Butler’s Pantry as a trial, but the catering company wants to purchase and install the $40,000 machine permanently—“of course they’re going to give us a great deal when we purchase it,” Jackson says. The company has applied for a grant from the city’s waste-management district to help purchase the machine—and then there are savings from reduced hauling fees as well.
The response from both staff and clients at Butler’s Pantry has been very positive, Jackson says. “Everyone is extremely pleased when they hear organic waste is not going into a landfill,” she says. “Our executive chef is very excited; he wants to try to use the water for his garden. He’ll do a test garden this year and use this water on part of it and tap water on the other part to see the difference.”
In other parts of the world, particularly Europe, the ORCA machines are popular because landfill space is limited, but the technology and machines are still fairly unusual in the United States. Richard Nix, Jr., president of Butler’s Pantry, says, “We didn’t try to focus on dollars and cents; we tried to focus on how we could make the environment a little bit better.”