“I love waste,” said Emily Bockian Landsburg, CEO of cleantech startup BlackGold Biofuels , when I ran into her at an an event in New York last night.  BlackGold Biofuels has developed a process for turning trap grease–the gunk collected in grease traps in restaurant sink drainpipes–into high-quality biodiesel.

BlackGold Biofuels has licensed its technology to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission for use in its Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant, where it is expected to produce 100,000 gallons of biodiesel yearly. Here’s a story about the project.

Landsburg sees a vast market for her technology, which she says has a two- to three-year payback period for her target customers, mostly waste water treatment plants, who already receive payments to accept the crud for disposal.

Waste was a hot topic yesterday. That day I also made the acquaintance of Sameer Rashid, business development manager for Harvest Power, a Massachusetts-based cleantech firm whose technology converts organic wastes into a syngas and compost.

Harvest Power intends to design, build, own, and operate facilities on behalf of municipalities and may add renewable energy generation facilities as well. Here a story about the firm form the Boston Globe.

I can’t yet vouch for their business models or economics–please comment with pointers to good studies you know about–but I love waste too.

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