There is a debate, we are told, about whether commercial composting would work in LA County. On the face of it this is a weird question. Why wouldn’t it work for such a high population density area which is such a massively productive county both in terms of its population as producers of organic waste suitable for commercial composting, and the natural productivity of the agricultural soils both producing compostible materials and available to make use of the fertilizing products?
We recommend that you read the article from which we have quoted, and to which we provide a link lower down on this page, however, although I appreciate the demand for land and difficulty in getting local residents to approve the locating of composting facilities near them. I don’t really go along with the basic premise that it’s to difficult to do large scale composting in LA County and not really feasible to redirect the largest part of the 30 odd percent of food waste which is the proportion which could be diverted from landfill.
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LAist |
The Great Compost Debate: Can It Be Done In LA County? LAist Photo caption: Composting tomatoes. The French Laundry garden, Yountville, CA – 10.11.09. Photo by urbanfoodie33 via Flickr. The question of whether or not LA County could champion a large-scale composting system is highly debatable, and some local …
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Here is a quote from the article to give you the flavor of it:
But L.A.’s considerable population may be the very obstacle in the way of large-scale composting. Ron Saldana of the L.A. County Disposal Association told KPCC, “In Southern California it’s pretty hard to find an area that isn’t heavily populated. The permitting becomes, I think, the number one restriction. And certainly we do have to add these facilities, and the industry is working hard with all of the regulatory agencies to try to get more facilities online.”
Saldana says that neighborhoods do not want compost facilities in their areas due to the stench, heat generated during the composting process and potential fire hazard risks. He added that compostable waste is trucked out of the region due to a lack of facilities, which adds to costs. Residents in NorCal areas that are implementing county or city-wide composting programs are “paying two to three times more… than in Southern California” in collection rates, according to Saldana, reminding listeners that “somewhere along the line somebody’s going to pay for it.”
The points are so one-sided within this article that they surely have to be contested. First, the writer says that shipping costs to take this material out of town to composting facilities away from population would make the exercise uneconomic. I don’t understand that when these wastes are already being trucked to landfills (which make even worse neighbors) and cannot be within these heavily populated areas either. OK, the funding pot might not be connected right now, but if waste management is run in an integrated way, surely the County could devise a financial instrument to cross-fund the transport element of large scale composting from savings on waste transport to the landfills. Plus of course there is the cost of landfilling these materials which are the most environmentally offensive, and hold the biggest potential for environmental damage later once in the landfills, of all the materials in domestic waste once it is the worst once disposed to landfill.
Finally, why assume that composting MUST be offensively odor producing. There are plenty of well run composting facilities which don’t cause bad neighbour problems. To avoid compost odors these site have to be run extremely carefully and maybe would be best designed as In-vessel Composting facilities so that all the high-odor sanitization is carried out in sealed tunnels with all extracted air treated and the odor removed before discharge. It works in Europe, and many otehr antions as well!
What will never work for LA County will be to choose their composting contractors on a lowest cost basis and then not regulate them and they must make it known that WILL place heavy penalties on facility operators the if odors occur.
Such regualtion is common practice elsehwhere. Is LA so lawless that they cannot, award their composting contractors on the basis of proven odor free technologies, make sure the plants are built to the plans submitted, and then police their own compost facility operators properly thereafter?
Listed below are some other websites with related information about this Compost topic:
PAS 100 and compost quality specifications
Tumbleweed Compost Bin | Rotating composter Bin Reviews
Anaerobic Digestate Disposal or Recovery: The factors influencing ...
Vermiculture | Define Vermiculture at Dictionary.com
How To Build A Simple Compost Bin
