'Valuable commodity': residents' feces will be used to heat New York

The excreta of the inhabitants of the Big Apple turn into methane at a sewage treatment plant in Brooklyn, Newtown Creek, and now this gas will be used in 5000 homes.

“We found a gas well in downtown Brooklyn,” said Donald Chahbazpour, director of future gas at energy company National Grid. “But the raw material is not fossil fuels, it’s us.”

The fecal-to-gas project, a joint venture between the city's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and National Grid, is scheduled to be operational by the end of the year.

Officials say this will save on carbon equivalent 19 000 cars per year.

“It [gas] is clean, green and local,” said city sewer supervisor Pam Elardo.

Wastewater is already being used to partially supply gas to the Newtown Creek plant itself. But the enterprise produced more gas than needed - so it burned extra cubic meters.

Now National Grid catches excess gas and, removing moisture and carbon dioxide, turns it into high-quality methane, which can be used in gas stoves.

“We're basically building a fancy filter,” Chahbazpour said.

But Chabazpur and Elardo insist that the gas produced is no different from what is already entering our homes.

“It cannot be distinguished from a molecular point of view. The only difference is that we are the raw material,” Chahbazpour said.

As part of a pilot program implemented by DEP, 130 tons of food waste, which is collected every day in hotels and restaurants, will also be involved in the project.

“It’s very interesting,” Elardo said, calling the city’s feces “a valuable commodity.”

“We take natural carbon locally and produce gas that is environmentally sustainable,” he says.

The sanitation department has been collecting methane gas for years from decaying garbage at the Fresh Kills dump on Staten Island.

But the Newtown Creek project is the first time gas from human waste will be brought into homes.

And although at the moment Greenpoint is the only wind power station in the city, Chakhbazpur said officials hope that the project will be implemented at 13 other wastewater treatment plants in the future.

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