Turning beer and food waste into electricity

Ashli Blow

Ashli Blow Jul 14, 2025

Jun 22, 2018

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          <article>
            <header>
              <hgroup>
                <h1>Turning beer and food waste into electricity</h1>
                <h2><p>A startup company in Seattle is converting half-eaten burgers, spoiled milk and spent yeast from a brewery into electricity and liquid fertilizer.

In this episode of ReInventors, host Katie Herzog visits Jan Allen of Impact Bioenergy to find out how a shipping-container-sized digester converts leftovers into energy. (Watch her get</p></h2>
              </hgroup>
               <p>By <a href="/author/ashli-blow/">Ashli Blow</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Jun 22, 2018</time></p>
            </header>
            <p>A startup company in Seattle is converting half-eaten burgers, spoiled milk and spent yeast from a brewery into electricity and liquid fertilizer.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9t56pxAcj8c" width="560"></iframe></figure><p>In this episode of <em>ReInventors, </em>host Katie Herzog visits Jan Allen of Impact Bioenergy to find out how a shipping-container-sized digester converts leftovers into energy. (Watch her get a workout with food scraps and step into a "HORSE.")</p><p><em>ReInventors</em> is produced by KCTS 9 and PBS Digital Studios. Each episode features scientists, inventors and tinkerers who are reimagining the basic elements of our everyday lives.</p><p><em>Full disclosure: Sara Nelson, co-owner of Fremont Brewing, is a member of Cascade Public Media’s board of directors. This video was produced prior to her board appointment in June 2018.</em></p>
          </article>

A startup company in Seattle is converting half-eaten burgers, spoiled milk and spent yeast from a brewery into electricity and liquid fertilizer.

In this episode of ReInventors, host Katie Herzog visits Jan Allen of Impact Bioenergy to find out how a shipping-container-sized digester converts leftovers into energy. (Watch her get a workout with food scraps and step into a "HORSE.")

ReInventors is produced by KCTS 9 and PBS Digital Studios. Each episode features scientists, inventors and tinkerers who are reimagining the basic elements of our everyday lives.

Full disclosure: Sara Nelson, co-owner of Fremont Brewing, is a member of Cascade Public Media’s board of directors. This video was produced prior to her board appointment in June 2018.

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By Ashli Blow

Ashli Blow is a Seattle-based freelance writer who talks with people — in places from urban watersheds to remote wildernesses — about the environment around them. She’s been working in journal