CUMBERLAND COUNTY, Pa. — Dickinson College is turning its cafeteria scraps and local food waste into electricity that powers homes, demonstrating a small-scale model for sustainable farming in Pennsylvania.

Every day, about 1,000 pounds of food waste from the college dining hall, along with leftovers from local restaurants like Molly Pitcher Brewing and, most recently, UPMC Carlisle’s cafeteria, are collected at the college farm. The facility recycles roughly 300,000 pounds of waste each year, which would have otherwise ended up in landfills.

“All that food waste that is currently going to the landfill, a lot of that is ending up as methane in the environment, which is a pollutant,” said Matt Steiman, assistant farm director. “If we can divert the food waste to farms, recycle it on farms while generating renewable electricity, we’re getting a double or triple win.”

The collected food is ground up and mixed with manure from a neighboring dairy farm before being placed in an airtight biodigester. Microbes break down the mixture, creating methane gas that powers a generator. Recently, Pennsylvania regulators approved the farm to feed excess electricity back to the grid, now powering the farm and an additional 20 to 30 homes.

Student farmers handle much of the operation. Abigail Huller said the biodigester accepts “pretty much anything that they serve us in the dining hall.” 

Farm apprentice Catie Bardo described the manure and food mixture as “the smelliest part of the operation,” but added that the process repurposes nearly everything.

“The solids are actually used as bedding for the cows and the liquids go into another holding tank, which is used basically as a fertilizer for pasture land and various crops,” Bardo explained.

Steiman said the project, which cost around $2.1 million, was largely funded through agricultural and environmental grants, resources available to other private farmers interested in similar systems. “We’re trying to demonstrate what’s possible on a family-scale dairy farm,” he said.

For farmers who already have barns and waste storage tanks in place, the cost would roughly be cut in half, around $1 million. 

Farmers interested in exploring similar systems or learning more about funding opportunities for anaerobic digesters can find resources through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s AgSTAR program.