Sewage is now being turned into biomethane gas, a renewable resource used instead of diesel for Recology trucks around King County.
Now, when you flush your toilet in King County you're helping fuel garbage trucks.
"Right now we are standing around the settling tanks. When you're at home, when you use your sink, shower or flush your toilet, your water is coming here," said Katelyn Hunt of King County Waste Water Division. "We need to immediately separate the water from the solid material, all that organic material."
Hunt gives a tour of King County's south treatment plant, showing off the facilities, starting with the digesters.
"All the poop and the food that we've removed from the water is coming over to our digesters. Our digesters are acting like our own digestive system. They are heated to 98 degrees," Hunt said. "The poop and the food in the digesters goes in, methane gas and fertilizer goes out."
The biomethane gas will fuel about 120 trucks for Recology.
"What is now happening is the gas that is coming out of this plant is a renewable resource because it's derived from wastewater. The impact of that is that it significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants that are produced locally," said Recology King County General Manager Kevin Kelly. "We get to fuel our trucks with that gas and have a cleaner burning fuel for our trucks that are on the road every day all day."
