Entrepreneurs hope to turn scraps to treasure in Warren

Posted 10/16/15

A pair of environmentalists turned entrepreneurs hope to put Warren at the forefront of the state’s growing food recycling and composting movement.

Nat Harris and Leo Pollock, who together run The Compost Plant in Providence, have made a pitch …

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Entrepreneurs hope to turn scraps to treasure in Warren

Posted

A pair of environmentalists turned entrepreneurs hope to put Warren at the forefront of the state’s growing food recycling and composting movement.

Nat Harris and Leo Pollock, who together run The Compost Plant in Providence, have made a pitch to the town to open what would be only the second food scrap recycling/commercial composting operation in the State of Rhode Island.

Their request, to lease town land at the DPW’s Birch Swamp Road yard for their operation, comes as Rhode Island prepares to enforce a new law that will require many large food waste generators across the state to compost, rather than throw out, their scraps.

“The message is, ‘It’s coming,’” said Mr. Harris. “The (Central) landfill is going to close in 20 years, and composting is going to become a requirement here" like it is in other New England states.

"We think Warren is a good fit because of what the town’s done with Hope & Main, and the many restaurants in the area. There’s a lot of opportunity here.”

The Compost Plant does not make compost. Instead, Mr. Harris and Pollock collect food scraps from restaurants across the state and haul them to Rhode Island’s only commercial composting plant licensed to handle food scraps, Earth Care Farm in Charlestown.

That would change if the deal with Warren comes to pass. On Jan. 1, 2016, the state will start enforcing a new law that requires all commercial food producers that generate more than two tons of food scraps per week to compost, rather than throw out, their waste.

The law would apply only to outfits within 15 miles of a commercial composting facility. By launching a facility in Warren, Mr. Harris and Mr. Pollock would be poised to service many of the larger restaurants, learning institutions, food producers and employers in the eastern half of the state, hauling their waste to Warren to be turned into compost. They would then sell that compost commercially.

“We don’t see one giant facility taking care of the whole state,” Mr. Harris said. “We could see three or four sites similar to this model. We’d love to pilot it in Warren.”

The partners approached town officials several months ago after researching possible locations for their pilot project. Apart from Warren’s food culture, they chose Warren because the DPW already has a small scale composting operation on Birch Swamp Road. Modifying the DPW’s infrastructure for their needs would not be difficult, Mr. Harris said.

The partners worked last year with the University of Rhode Island to develop a cost-effective, easy to manage system for aerating the mixed piles of food scraps and yard waste that together break down into rich compost. Under their system, air blowers underneath the piles inject air into the mixture. While static piles of waste and scraps can produce compost in about a year, the ASP, or “Aerated Static Pile” method can produce stable, viable compost in about half that time.

“What makes it successful is moisture and air,” Mr. Harris said. “The microbes in that pile need moisture and air to survive. The air system we designed goes under the pile and aerates it through a blower.”

Another benefit of the ASP method, he said, is that it produces very little odor, as the piles are not continually turned over but instead, aerated from below.

“It generates very little” odor, Mr. Harris predicted.

Now what?

The Compost Plant has applied for a federal Small Business Innovation Grant and Mr. Pollock and Mr. Harris won’t learn whether they’ve been approved until early next year. If they're approved, they hope to set up their operation soon after and believe they could be producing compost by the end of 2016.

And while they have not yet come to any arrangement with the town, Mr. Harris said they would lease acreage from the town, hopefully for an initial five-year term.

“During that time we can get up to full capacity,” Mr. Harris said. “If everything works out, then extending that (lease) out to another 25 years.”

DPW Director John Massed said he has been talking to the pair for several months, and is looking forward to “getting down to the nitty gritty” once word on the federal grant comes back.

“It sounds like it would be a good fit,” he said.

Mr. Harris predicted that once it is running at full capacity a few years down the road, the Birch Swamp operation could generate as much as 5,000 cubic yards of finished compost per year.

The Compost Plant

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