In a story from WNYC New York City's fledgling composting program has hit a major snag. It appears that the processing plant that took food scraps from New York City in the pilot program of 'Food Composting' has shut down. This is forcing the city to mix the composting in with its regular landfill garbage at least until another composting plant can be found that can handle the NYC composting.
the problem was the highly-contaminated nature of New York City's organic waste, known in the composting industry as "feedstock." Most composting companies are small operations that take feedstock that's relatively easy to break down, like rotting fruits and vegetables, leaves, and grass clippings.
Peninsula Composting Group's facility in Wilmington, Del., took composting that included contaminants such as discarded eggs, dead chicks from hatcheries, manure-filled animal bedding, and decaying meat and bones. The facility also took material that was highly contaminated with plain old garbage, using magnets to pull out metals and employees to pick out plastics and other non-organic stuff.
In October, Delaware's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control refused to renew Peninsula's permit. After a public hearing that drew 200 people.where most of the audience testified against the composting plant, they describing odors that were so awful they induced nausea and prevented children from playing outdoors. Equipment was found not to be working among other violations at the plant.
With the closure of the Delaware composting plant NYC must now send the composting material to normal landfills. It is now up in the air as to when the city can or will increase its composting pilot program. An section of Community Board 8 was to be one of the next increased composting areas, but this is now put on hold until the city can find a new composting plant that can handle the cities composting materials.
