Meet the Machine That's Turning Grocery Stores' Food Waste Into FertilizerA pair of seasoned tech workers are helping to solve a $165 billion problem.

拉里LeSueur sof的前同事tware world asking him, "What the heck are you doing?" It's a reasonable question, considering the decidedly different turn he and his former Microsoft colleague Jose Lugo took in 2010 when they founded Redmond, Wash.-based WISErg, anxious to solve the growing problem of food waste in America.

That's right—the duo went from high-tech to food scraps, hoping to address the fact that 40 percent of food in the U.S.—about $165 billion worth per year—goes uneaten, with most ending up in landfills, according to a 2012 report from the Natural Resources Defense Council.