An old concept: Done high tech

“Everything old is new again”, as the song by Peter Allen goes. When it comes to food waste composting, this sentiment says it all. Composting dates back at least to Roman times and has been used by farms for hundreds of years to both get rid of excess food/organic waste and to cultivate the rich “black gold” needed to keep their soils healthy and fertile. These days, composting seems to be having a renaissance of sorts as industry and local governments have become more aware of the costs of just throwing organic matter out in the garbage. These costs, both financial and environmental, have become hard to ignore. In Cherry Hill, the township pays almost $65 per ton to dispose of our trash. Most of it goes straight to the incinerator in Camden, where our garbage gets burned, leaving us with questional air quality and toxic fly ash to contend with. Other counties send their waste to landfills, the largest man made source of methane, a green house gas more harmful than CO2, emitted when tons and tons of buried and decaying organic materials start to decompose. According to the USEPA, food, yard and wood waste accounts for approximately 31 percent of the Municipal Solid Waste stream in the US. What if we could save money, cut back on harmful methane produced in landfills and and decrease the toxic byproducts of incinerators?

That is just the question that our Composting Task Force has been asking. Led by our fearless leader, Melisa Skrym, we have been collecting information from near and far about how communities, businesses and the waste industry are taking the lead on this issue. Melisa has visited Converted Organics, a company in Woodbridge, NJ, whose use of a biodigester process to compost food waste results in an organic fertilizer pellet or liquid, Cedar Grove Composting in Seattle, where weekly curbside pick up of food waste is now in effect and finally, to Delaware, where I joined the task force for a tour of the soon to be opened Peninsula Composting Company.

Our tour took place on a cold, damp Friday in October, as a group of us carpooled down to the Port of Wilmington for a tour of the almost completed facility. We were met by Nelson Widell, Partner and Brian Schaffer, Exec VP and GM and got the full tour. Unlike Converted Organics, who use a digester to process their food waste, Peninsula uses patented “Gore” technology to cover and aerate the developing compost. Think “Goretex” covering the piles, with monitoring for oxygen and periodic bursts of air puffed into the piles, ballooning out the “Gore” tarp and energizing the natural composting process. Both facilities use oxygen to compost the food waste, thus eliminating the methane gas that results from decomposition of organic matter in an air deprived landfill environment. Nelson and Brian showed us the technology to be used to keep odor down and to reduce liquid leachate from the decaying piles. The byproduct of Peninsula’s process is rich, beautiful compost that can be sold for landscaping and agricultural purposes. Take a look at some photos from our field trip. We hope to go back in the spring to see this place in action. They are due to open for business next month.

It seems like composting food waste, rather than throwing it out can be at least a break even endeavor for towns, businesses and industry and potentially could even save them some money. We plan to continue our process of researching and facilitating best practices and opportunities for both backyard composting and large scale community composting. Stay tuned!

Pictured in no particular order: Nelson Widell, Brian Schaffer, Melisa Skyrm, Mark Smith, Sandi Lichtman and me. Photos taken by Elliot Braunstein.