Food Cycling Within New Haven, Connecticut: Creating Opportunities for Economic, Civic, and Environmental Progress Through Industrial Symbiosis 2001

The overall goal of this project was to formulate a set of economic development objectives that draw on food-related industrial symbiosis opportunities in New Haven, Connecticut. Our research and analysis looked at existing food sector operations within the city’s boundaries and incorporated potential new businesses that might be established in New Haven, especially in the waterfront district. While the context of the project necessarily focused our work on the industrial ecology aspects of the analysis, we address social issues, quality-of-life considerations, and other factors when they are particularly significant to the rationale behind or operation of the proposed industrial symbiosis opportunities. PROJECT BACKGROUND Our analysis builds upon an earlier Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies industrial ecology project that also focused on food-related industrial symbiosis opportunities for New Haven (see Drummond et al., “Efficacy of Industrial Symbiosis for Food Residues in the Greater New Haven Area,” 1998 in this volume). The earlier project included a characterization of different types of food operations within the city, a description of material inputs and outputs, and short-, medium-, and long-term proposals for creating industrial symbiosis among various kinds of food-related businesses. We have incorporated certain components of this work within our analysis, although the waterfront development focus of this paper, along with the findings of our own research, have led us in a slightly different direction in terms of the scope of our project and the nature of the industrial symbiosis plan we recommend. The earlier group focused largely on composting, food charities, and economic development via the establishment of a rendering facility and an animal feed manufacturer in New Haven. In our plan, we attempt to provide a wider array of economic development possibilities that meet a different set of criteria than those relevant to large-scale rendering and pet or livestock food manufacturing. We explain these criteria and our rationale when we introduce the industrial symbiosis case studies.