City Closes Composter Experiment
By Jim Balow, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.
May 02–Charleston’s 10-year experiment with composting yard waste and sewage sludge has officially ended, at least for the next 12 months.
Starting today, you can mix grass clippings with your trash or stuff leaves into black garbage bags. It all goes to the same place — the city landfill up Mission Hollow.
“The compost doesn’t work,” Mayor Danny Jones told city council Monday evening in announcing the decision by the Charleston Sanitary Board to close the facility. “The compost has never worked. We’re stuck with a facility we can’t use.”
City officials in the mid-’90s touted the compost maker in Copenhaver Park as the solution to two environmental problems. The composter would turn sludge from the sewage plant and yard waste — leaves, shredded tree trimmings and grass clippings — into a fertilizer people could spread on their gardens. By keeping yard waste out of the landfill, it would extend the dump’s lifetime.
But from the start, the $5.2 million project caused as many problems as it solved.
“I call it a good environmental experiment that just failed,” sanitary board General Manager Larry Roller said. “It costs us far more money to operate that facility than we can afford.”
The state Division of Environmental Protection on Monday approved the city’s request to take yard waste to the landfill for a year while it explores other ideas.
“One option might be to compost by windrowing,” City Manager David Molgaard said. “That’s going to take a significant amount of property. We’re looking at up near the landfill or at the landfill. That’s the only site that may be available without buying property.”
Windrowing, a method of composting that involves placing yard waste in long rows and turning it periodically, has its own problems, Molgaard said, such as odor. If proper temperatures and moisture levels aren’t maintained, the waste does not break down properly.
The sanitary board was under orders from the DEP to install $2 million of paving under the composter, Molgaard said. In addition, the machine needed $6,400 of immediate repairs and another $800,000 of improvements in the next year. The board decided it couldn’t afford to keep it running.
Residents recycle less waste than city planners projected 10 years ago, he said. The sewage plant also produces less sludge than before.
“The problem is it’s increased the cost,” Molgaard said. “Instead of $37 a ton, it costs $165 a ton [of compost], and if operations were to continue it’s estimated the cost would go up to $225 a ton.”
By contrast, the city will pay about $40 a ton to take its 4,200 tons of yard waste to the landfill.
City Councilman Marc Weintraub boiled down the numbers. “You’re telling us it will cost $2 million for the privilege of paying $500,000 extra to compost our yard waste. I can think of lots of things we can do with $500,000.”
Molgaard said the savings could be even more. City officials had already set aside $250,000 in next year’s budget to help the sanitary board keep the composter running. It can use that money instead to pay for yard waste land-filling, and have $90,000 left over.
In addition, the city can save fuel by not running separate trucks to pick up trash and yard waste.
To contact staff writer Jim Balow, use e-mail or call 348-5102.
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Copyright (c) 2006, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.
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