New machine turns waste into fertilizer

By MIKE TRELEVEN, Napa Valley Register, Nov. 27, 2009

At the St. Helena restaurant Press, gone are the days when kitchen staff scraped leftovers into trash bags destined for the landfill.

Instead, the restaurant has installed a state-of-the-art dehydrating system that takes wet food-waste along with other compostable materials and turns it into a dry, nutrient-rich soil additive.

The St. Helena restaurant is the first eatery in the Napa Valley to install the technology, which was developed in South Korea, where it has been in use for 12 years. It has been in the United States for 18 months.

Press’ kitchen staff will never have to cope with flies, rodents and smells or worry about clogging the sewer system with the food waste.

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