FAYETTEVILLE — Fayetteville's two-year-old pilot project to recycle food waste from Sam's Club is producing compost of even higher quality than compost from yard waste.
The project is going so well it's time for the city to decide whether to move forward and expand the program to accept food waste from other grocers and businesses. This requires a $500,000 capital investment but could divert 1,700 or more tons of food waste from landfills each year and transform that waste into compost to benefit the community.
In 2007, the city received a permit exemption from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality to test food composting with Sam's Club. About 60 tons are composted each year. It's small scale, but the quality is high.
The food waste provided by Sam's Club is less than 5 percent of what the city could easily accommodate with the proper permit and a few modifications to the composting facility, a recent study by consultants R.W. Beck suggested.
To that end, the Fayetteville Solid Waste and Recycling Division is seeking a permit modification this year to upgrade its Class Y yardwaste permit to Class O organics - which would allow expansion to include other stores, Brian Pugh, city waste reduction coordinator, said. The City Council would have to support any capital project.
When the Fayetteville Sam's Club opened in 2007, the store included a method for separating food waste from regular trash.
A door was installed in back of the building to access a composting bin for food discards. The club donates edible produce to a food bank, but anything ineligible is separated into the composting bin.
Every two to three weeks, the store sends food waste to the city's composting facility at 1708 S. Armstrong Ave., south of Huntsville Road The amount usually equals a few tons, Pugh said, and it's kept separate from yard waste.
The food waste is mixed and monitored for temperature and moisture content. In about four to six months, the natural composting technique produces a rich, dark material that is beneficial to plants.
On this same 3-acre property, in a separate section, the city also composts brush and yard waste.
Both types of compost are tested annually by a laboratory in Maine for mineral and heavy metals composition, moisture content, weight and the presence of commercial yard chemicals. Both are consistently rated garden quality and Rodale certified.
The food-waste compost ranks about 96 percent out of a possible 100 with the yard-waste compost at 88 percent, according to reports from Woods End Research Laboratories.
Compost is used throughout the city in parks and landscaping and is sold to city residents for $20 per scoop, which is about 1.5 cubic yards.
In 2008, the city composted about 5,130 tons of yard waste. For that amount, an appropriate volume of food waste is 1,700 tons, the study said. The city could increase this amount slowly to find the perfect compost recipe.
The city could begin by accepting food waste from five sanitation customers - two Wal-Mart Supercenters, IGA Thriftway, Marvin's IGA and Ozark Natural Foods - the report suggested.
Those stores would supply about 1,325 tons of food waste per year. Other sources for food waste include schools, restaurants, food manufacturers and agricultural entities.
Before more food waste could be accommodated, the compost facility needs a larger concrete pad, Pugh said, since food waste is so moist. The pad would cost about $438,000.
"We're limited on the current site. Without a concrete surface, when it rains, the pad gets muddy. It's hard to move the materials around using the equipment," Pugh said.
The pilot project doesn't regulate how often compost is turned - but the new permit, and larger scale, would require more turning.
Containers would be needed for customers. Ideally these would be high-density polyethylene to avoid corrosion, the study said. Those cost about $700 each.
R.W. Beck suggested the cost of containers and collecting the food waste could be recovered with fees. Grocers and other businesses are paying to have food waste hauled to a landfill now.
Kory Lundberg, spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., said he couldn't provide specifics about whether the Fayetteville Sam's Club saves money by not hauling food waste to a landfill.
"Typically, there is a hauler fee and landfill tipping fee. What we've found - as we're implementing waste reduction efforts across the country - is there's a tremendous opportunity to reduce cost by not sending to the landfill. This helps us continue moving toward our overall goal, which is to eventually send zero waste to the landfill."
Sam's Club in Fayetteville has several unique features, such as rainwater and daylight harvesting, exposed concrete floors made with 20 percent fly ash and a car wash that recycles water, he said.
"It's a test club in itself - how well do these things work, and will we see the return needed to make them a viable business option? At this point (the food waste composting ) is unique, rare, but hopefully at some point it will be more common. As people come and get the compost, put in their gardens, we think it's closing the loop."
News, Pages 1, 6 on 08/31/2009