Waste pulpers systems include a macerator ( grinder ) and a dewatering unit, ideally to use in conjunction with any of our food waste onsite solutions to decrease the volume of food waste, where suitable and practical. Where food waste is an issue and you have the ability to use any of our sustainable solutions, we will sometimes recommend the use of this "pre treatment" to help complement our own process.  Below are examples of food waste, installations and the end product when a waste pulper system is used.  This food waste "pre treatment" system is used, where practical, for several reasons: 

a) Onsite Operation - Rocket® composter and other food waste onsite sustainable solutions:
First, it creates a much greater surface area to the food waste, allowing the biological process inside our composters to start work much quicker. Second, it helps to maintain constant moisture content of the food waste entering our machines - keeping the moisture content as close to 65% is vital. Finally, it reduces the overall volume of the waste, as all the air gaps are lost through the macerating process, allowing our machines to effectively process greater amounts of food waste - or reduce the size of the machine needed in certain applications. Giving up to an 80% Volume Reduction of waste to be treated. 

The waste pulper system is designed to treat the food waste before entering any of our solutions, or it can be used in catering establishments as a waste volume reduction system.  It is capable of processing up to 990 lbs per hour depending on the model. 

When composting food waste, it is important to remember that it is a biological activity carried out by millions of microscopic organisms. Because these organisms are so small, they like to digest small meals. This means that our food waste must be made as small as practically possible, so these organisms can easily digest it. In order to do this we need to make sure that the food waste has as large a surface area as possible so that it can be covered by as many organisms as possible. A simple way of doing this is by using a in or under sink macerator. This system breaks the food down into small particles without turning it into a paste. It is important that we don’t remove all the structure from the food waste, as this structure is needed in the composting process to aid mixing and aeration. 

As the macerators introduce water into the food waste, the waste that is generally high in water content becomes saturated and too wet to be easily composted so it must have as much of this excess water removed as is practically possible so that it will be compostable. To do this we use a de-waterer which gently squeezes the broken up waste to remove most of the excess water leaving moist shredded food waste particles that are suitable for composting.  

Now that the food waste is in small particles it can easily be transported to the Rocket® composter in smaller containers, because most of the unnecessary air gaps between the different shaped food pieces have been removed leaving a uniform shaped mass of particles which will easily mix with the other compost making ingredients. This waste can be mixed quickly with the other ingredients. It will quickly become attractive to the organisms and this helps to speed up the composting process.

b) Offsite Operation – when sending food waste to landfill, composting site or other place.It is ideal for these sites as a waste volume reduction system improving dramatically the site waste handling efficiency. Waste pulpers typically can reduce food, paper, plastic and other waste by 70-90% which translates into 10 bags of garbage compressed to only 1-3 bags. When it comes to food waste, everybody pays to transport water since food waste contains a moisture content of approximately 75%. This is the ideal way to pay only for transporting the solids in your waste stream.