Marin Sanitary Service Helps Turn Food into Clean Energy with Tiger HS-55 Depackager

Marin Sanitary Service (MSS), based in San Rafael, California, is a recycling pioneer that provides residential and commercial waste collection, recyclables, and organic waste pick-up services for Marin County. This includes an innovative partnership with Central Marin Sanitation Agency (CMSA) called Food2Energy, where food waste diverted from landfills is converted into clean energy. To process its food waste, Marin Sanitary uses the Tiger HS-55 depackaging machine.

And when three recycling leaders combine forces, amazing things happen.

Marin Sanitary Service was founded in 1948 and throughout its history has been a leader in the recycling industry. It established the first Material Recovery Facility and Transfer Station in the nation to sort materials to be recycled instead of sending it to the landfill, and created the first county-wide curbside recycling program in the United States which was adopted by countless other communities and led to national legislation.

CMSA is recognized as a high-performance wastewater utility in Marin County and is consistently recognized by state and national organizations for its permit compliance, facility operations, safety, and financial reporting. But wastewater treatment is only part of what it does; its biosolids are beneficially reused as cover at the Redwood Landfill, as land-applied fertilizer/soil amendment for livestock feed crops, and used to produce liquid bio-fertilizer.

Tiger Depack is a global leader in resource recovery because of its advanced depackaging and material separation technology. Its machines excel at separating organic food waste from inorganic packaging, allowing for the recovery of both. This technology enables the repurposing of organic waste and recycling of packaging materials, reducing landfill waste and creating value from discarded material.

Marin Sanitary and its Tiger processes food waste which is then transported to CMSA and loaded into its anaerobic digesters to create clean energy.

“In 2024, CMSA received 3,132 wet tons of food waste from MSS, which produced 727,000 kWh of electricity,” according to Magda Loczi of Marin Sanitary Service. “In 2023, we delivered 2,632 wet tons; a year-over-year increase of 19%. Given the average plant load demand of 600 kW, the CMSA facility was powered for about 50 days using the food waste provided from our jurisdiction.”

And all that food waste was processed through Marin’s Tiger HS-55 depack machine.

“Prior to the Tiger,” says Loczi, “we used a conveyor belt set up and workers would physically pull non-organics like bottles, cans, and plastics and put them in a debris box before being placed into a shredder. The sorted and shredded food waste would then be transported to the processing facility. Back in 2013, our volume was about 7 – 10 tons per week. We’ve been able to increase that volume substantially with the addition of the Tiger and now process an average of about 7 – 10 tons per day. In 2024, we saw a volume increase of 8%, and we expect that number to continue to grow.”

Marin also accepts additional tonnage from local haulers that don’t have the food waste processing infrastructure that Marin does. “We also accept loads from distributors and food producers that are anywhere from 10 – 40 tons per delivery.”

Why did Marin Sanitary Service purchase the Tiger HS-55?

“Keeping the organic output material clean and free of contamination is top priority for us,” says Loczi. “We only use the Tiger for our Food2Energy material, which helps keep our material stream very high quality, with limited contamination. We can process a semi-truck full of material in less than an hour and know the material will be safe for the digesters. As our material stream expands, it’s important for the quality of the material to stay consistent.”

That’s not the only reason.

“We looked at other machines, but the footprint of the Tiger works for our small area,” says Loczi. “We found that the Tiger was best at keeping the contamination levels as low as possible with a fast rate of processing. Our objectives were better throughput, less labor, and high processing speed, and we are very happy with the results and have plenty of capacity for growth.”

Staying true to its resource recovery roots, Marin Sanitary Service not only recycles food waste, but as much of the packaging as possible.

“The Tiger handles a variety of packaging materials, and we have had great results with everything from metals, cardboard, and plastic packaging,” according to Loczi. “We can recycle packaging when the packaging material is all the same, but when cardboard, paper, plastic and shrink wrap are all mixed, unfortunately it must be landfilled.”

Food waste is an underutilized resource, and it’s great to see Marin Sanitary helping turn it into clean energy with the help of its Tiger depackager. 

To learn more about Marin Sanitary Service, visit https://marinsanitaryservice.com/.

Tiger depackagers effectively separate organic food waste from inorganic packaging, including paper, plastic, cardboard, aluminum, and metal to produce up to 99.6% contamination-free organics, making them perfect for applications like composting and biogas production. Tiger Depack systems can handle various waste streams, including bulk commercial food waste, pre- or post-consumer waste, and even rejects from paper production or waste treatment processes. 

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