Michael Gross has been in the waste and recycling industry since 1979. In his position as Director of Sustainability for GreenWaste and the Zanker family of companies, he focuses on greenhouse-gas emissions reductions, procurement opportunities, C&D diversion opportunities, waste management and recycling alternatives and marketing, and energy and water conservation programs. He provides leadership to reach the company's environmental goals, advocates the transformation of the waste industry and works with the communities to integrate sustainability into their daily lives.

Case Study - ZWEDC Dry Anaerobic Digestion facility in San Jose
The ZWEDC AD Facility is the largest dry fermentation anaerobic digestion project in the world processing organic waste and generating renewable power. Up to 90,000 tons per year of organic waste (250 tons-per-day) is produced. The facility consists of 16 AD tunnels, 4 In-vessel Composting Tunnels, and 2 x 800 kW combined heat & power supply units that provide the electricity production.

Yaniv Scherson is the Managing Director for the western U.S. region for Anaergia and is based in Carlsbad California where he leads Anaergia's projects integrating organics recycling from solid waste with anaerobic digestion and wastewater for production of renewable power and renewable natural gas. He is a licensed professional engineer in California and holds Ph.D. and MS degrees from Stanford University.

Wet AD projects development in California
Sorting organics from MSW for anaerobic digestion offers a cost-effective solution that avoids the additional collection, outreach, or new bins. By utilizing traditional solid waste processing equipment that fits within existing transfer stations and by partnering with existing AD infrastructure the deployment of food waste to green energy production can be quickly ramped-up. Two California case studies (North & South) will be presented of centralized solid waste processing with organics extraction at MRFs coupled with the use of new and existing anaerobic digestion infrastructure.

With over 100 employees, South San Francisco Scavenger Company serves three cities, operates 40 collection trucks with 25,000 residential and 1,800 commercial accounts, including the San Francisco International Airport. Food and green waste is anaerobically digested onsite and the biogas is used to fuel the company's collection fleet.

Dry AD to vehicle fuel project case study
The Blue Line Biogenic CNG Facility has given the ability to reduce the organics going into the landfill by converting that same waste into CNG fuel that powers our collection routes a true closed loop system. It's good for us, the cities we serve, and California. This unique closed-loop system transforms 11,200 tons of food and green waste per year into biogenic compressed natural gas (CNG), produces heat to run the operations and provides high-quality compost. The facility can produce up to 120,000 diesel gallon equivalent (DGE) per year of carbon negative biogenic CNG - enough to fuel up to 18 of Blue Line sister company, South San Francisco Scavenger's collection vehicles.

RethinkWaste (SBWMA) is a joint powers authority comprised of 12 Member Agencies in San Mateo County and is a leader in implementing innovative waste reduction and recycling programs. RethinkWaste also owns and manages the Shoreway Environmental Center in San Carlos that includes a permitted solid waste transfer station and a recycling processing facility. Hilary Gans has worked in the recycling and composting industry for 30-years for private companies and currently for RethinkWaste for the past 10-years.