Food Waste Recycling Comes Curbside Soon
Food waste recycling arrives soon to curbside residential recycling programs in South Sound, thanks in large part to the success of a one-year-old organic waste composting plant in south Thurston County.
Beginning May 1, customers of LeMay Enterprises and its subsidiaries can place food waste and compostable paper from food products in their yard waste disposal bins for pickup, noted Terry Thomas, an education and outdoor specialist with Thurston County Solid Waste.
The city of Olympia is expected to follow with a similar program this summer, she said.
The materials collected will go to Silver Springs Organics, a state-licensed organic waste recycling center at 13911 Military Road S.E., Tenino.
There they will be mixed with yard and wood waste, ground into smaller-sized particles, then and allowed to cook and decompose in controlled, covered piles for 45 days to produce compost used for landscape projects, soil conditioning, erosion control and other projects, company manager Greg Schoenbachler said.
The finished product is safe to use on vegetable gardens and agricultural fields, Schoenbachler said. The company has an application pending with the state Department of Agriculture to label the compost certified organic so it can be sold to commercial organic farms, he said.
Silver Springs Organics opened in May, receiving anywhere from 2,000 tons to 5,000 tons of organic waste a month from a four-county area, Schoenbachler said.
"Before Silver Springs opened, there was nowhere to take this stuff," Thomas said of the explosion in commercial and residential food waste recycling. "That’s what made it all work."
The outdoor composting plant is on 12 acres of converted pasture. It’s surrounded by 2 square miles of property owned by Silver Springs Cattle Co., the parent company of the composting operation.
The large land buffer eliminates the threat of nuisance and odor complaints from neighbors.
"We have not had a single odor complaint," Schoenbachler said. "Odors are not reaching the road or our neighbors." Schoenbachler credits the computerized aeration system that keeps air flowing in and out of the compost piles as needed to maintain proper composting conditions. By the time a pile is done, it has received 770,000 temperature measurements from the microprocessors that regulate air flow.
The duct work that is part of the aeration system also captures gas emissions from the piles and diverts them through biofilter beds of wood waste to scrub out the odors.
When water is needed to moisten the piles, it comes from a 3.5 million-gallon stormwater pond where liquid runoff from the piles is collected, treated and aerated.
So far, the business is meeting all the business and environmental goals it set out to accomplish, Schoenbachler said.
"Overall, I’d say he’s been doing really well," said Bill Dean, a Thurston County environmental health specialist who has visited the site on several occasions. "Our main concern is that the incoming materials into compost piles as soon as possible. He’s done a good job of that."
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