 FROM WASTE TO FERTILIZER, FUEL, AND CLEAN WATER
Burlington, ON: Anaergia Inc. provides end-to end solutions for extracting organics from waste implementing high efficiency anaerobic digestion, upgrading biogas, producing fertilizer and cleaning water
“While anaerobic digestion and organics diversion are well established across much of Europe and have gained strong momentum in North America, we are particularly excited about the long-term potential in Latin America, Asia, Australia, and Africa, all regions where Anaergia is currently positioned to support project development and execution.
A key driver behind this momentum is the growing recognition of methane’s climate impact. Over a 20-year timeframe, methane emissions are approximately 84 times more detrimental to the climate than carbon dioxide, making the capture and conversion of organic waste-derived methane one of the most immediate and effective actions available to reduce the impact of greenhouse gas on the environment.”
– Sasha Rollings-Scattergood, CTO Anaergia Inc.
Interview with Sasha Rollings-Scattergood
By Suzanne Forcese
WT: Sasha, you have received industry recognition for your contributions to the clean energy sector, including being named to Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30. Now your impressive track record has promoted you to CTO of Anaergia Inc. Congratulations!
Please introduce yourself to our viewers giving us a brief bio that also describes the journey that brought you to Anaergia and the role you have played since 2012 including the team talent you have built... and the direction you are headed for now.
Rollings-Scattergood: Thank you for the kind accolades on the CTO appointment. It is an exciting role to hold, particularly at Anaergia, where technology underpins nearly everything we do, from product development to project execution and long-term operations.
I joined Anaergia in 2012 within the research and development department, and over the past decade I have been closely involved in more than a dozen major product developments, including taking several technologies from early-stage R&D through to full commercial deployment. That journey has also included hands-on global assignments across Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America, working alongside an exceptional group of scientists, engineers, and product developers.
Today, Anaergia’s technology organization consists of four core teams. Three are product-focused teams with two based in Europe and one in Canada, all supported by a centralized global R&D group that serves the entire organization. One particularly exciting evolution has been the growth of the Canadian product team, which spun out of corporate R&D as several technologies proved to be strong market fits. That effort ultimately led to the formation of Anaergia Integrated Systems, a dedicated product group focused on integrated biogas systems and packaged solutions.
Looking ahead, our direction is twofold. At the corporate R&D level, we continue to develop disruptive technologies designed to fundamentally improve how resources are recovered from anaerobic digestion. Within our current commercial product platform, we are focusing on sustaining innovations, which are continuous, disciplined improvements that make our technologies more reliable, efficient, and operator-friendly. A good example is the release of the second generation of our PSM mixing systems, widely regarded as among the most energy-efficient submersible mixers available today. We have similar impactful development underway across our biogas upgrading systems, separation technologies, and OREX platform.
WT: Please give us an overview of Anaergia.
Rollings-Scattergood: Our corporate mission is to lead the world’s clean energy transition through innovative technology solutions and our vision is to accelerate global decarbonization.
To achieve our mission and vision, Anaergia serves three primary verticals:
- Agricultural residues and agri-food processing;
- Municipal solid waste and source-separated organics; and
- Wastewater treatment and sewage sludge management
Anaergia is a global, vertically integrated provider of waste-to-value solutions, focused on converting organic waste into renewable natural gas, clean water, and natural fertilizer. We deploy proprietary technologies and integrated delivery capabilities including engineering and system integration, equipment manufacturing and sales, long-term operations contracts, and select project ownership.
What differentiates Anaergia is the depth and maturity of our platform with over 300 patents, more than 18 years of operating history, and equipment deployed at over 1,750 facilities across 18 countries. Our participation across all segments of the RNG value chain allows us to tightly control project outcomes, manage risk, and capture value from equipment, operations, and infrastructure economics.
WT: How does the basic technology work? What does the journey look like from input to output?
Rollings-Scattergood: Anaergia maintains a broad and flexible technology portfolio capable of managing organic feedstocks with virtually any level of contamination. This allows us to process materials ranging from clean agricultural slurries and manure to grocery store waste and all the way to mixed municipal solid waste.
In the pretreatment stage, we employ technologies ranging from shredding and pumping systems to advanced solutions such as the CleanREX 3000H, which uses high-speed centrifugal paddles to liberate organics. At the highest level, our OREX Organics Extrusion Press stands apart as the only commercially proven solution capable of extracting a clean organic slurry from black-bag municipal solid waste.
Once prepared, the organic slurry enters anaerobic digestion. Anaergia’s digestion solutions emphasize process stability and operational uptime. Our high-solids mixing system combines high-torque permanent synchronous magnet motors (similar to those used in high-performance electric vehicles) with our proprietary ServiceBox access system. This design allows mixers to be maintained without shutting down the digester, a significant advantage for operators.
On the back end, Anaergia delivers biogas conditioning and upgrading systems that were designed based on real-world operational experience. Our systems are engineered for maximum energy efficiency, high operational availability, and long-term reliability, ensuring that the biogas produced with our systems is consistently upgraded to pipeline-quality renewable natural gas.
WT: Describe Anaergia's role in partnerships and the services you provide.
Rollings-Scatterfood: We are extremely fortunate to be selected by some of the world’s leading companies and public institutions as their trusted partner for biogas and waste-to-value solutions. These partnerships are taken very seriously at Anaergia. Wherever possible, our philosophy is to exceed our customers expectations.
Anaergia’s global presence allows multinational customers to rely on the same high quality and consistent execution whether projects are delivered in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, or Latin America.
Our services are tailored to customer needs and range from individual technology packages which include equipment, design support, and installation assistance, all the way to full design-build delivery of turnkey anaerobic digestion facilities. These facilities often include pretreatment, digestion, biogas upgrading, dewatering, and even wastewater treatment. Beyond project delivery, we also provide long-term operations and maintenance services and comprehensive aftermarket support.
WT: How many projects has Anaergia participated in? Please highlight a couple that would interest our Canadian and US viewers.
Rollings-Scattergood: Anaergia has participated in nearly 2,000 projects worldwide, spanning multiple continents, regulatory environments, and organic waste streams. In Canada, while it is difficult to single out any one project, a particularly notable example is the recent net-zero upgrade at the Petawawa Water Pollution Control Plant
This project represents the first implementation of co-digestion at a municipal wastewater treatment facility in Canada.
By integrating food waste with existing wastewater sludge digestion, the facility will significantly increase biogas production and will generate sufficient on-site electricity to operate as a net-zero facility. The project demonstrates how existing wastewater infrastructure can be transformed into a renewable energy asset through the strategic addition of organics diversion, without the need for entirely new facilities.
Your California audience may be interested in this video of the Victor Valley WWTP as an example of co-digestion in California.
WT:Our viewers in Mexico (wtmx.mx) would be interested in the project Anaergia is undertaking in Mexico. Tell us more about the project with PepsiCo Mexico Foods and what you are expecting to accomplish in 2026.
Rollings-Scattergood:In Mexico, Anaergia entered into an agreement with PepsiCo Mexico Foods, to deliver an integrated renewable energy solution at one of their food production facilities.
In the project, Anaergia is supplying high-efficiency digestion technology integrated with advanced biogas conditioning and upgrading systems. The project is expected to convert approximately 50,000 tonnes per year of organic residues into carbon-negative biomethane. This biomethane will be used on-site, replacing fossil natural gas and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 4,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually. The facility is expected to be operational before the end of 2026.
From a technology perspective, this project is particularly exciting as it represents another deployment of our high-efficiency biogas upgrading systems that we manufacture in Canada, as well as our high-solids mixing platform, including the highly-efficient PSM mixers and ServiceBox system.
WT: What is your vision moving forward?
Rollings-Scattergood: Anaergia is taking steps to remain at the forefront of anaerobic digestion and organic waste management technologies. As we have demonstrated historically, we are comfortable operating across the full value chain, and we will continue to expand our portfolio of technologically advanced solutions.
Looking ahead, I see significant opportunity in extracting additional value from digestate residues, both by recovering even more biogas and by improving downstream utilization. In parallel, the biogenic CO₂ fraction of biogas presents enormous potential for additional value creation. This CO₂ can be extracted, augmented, and converted into additional biofuels or value-added products, further reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
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