Cleaning the Plate: Preliminary results look promising for a 15-month

pilot project to compost food waste generated by

the commercial and institutional sectors.

by Monica Duebbert, Richard Flammer and David J Williams

A state-funded food waste composting pilot project is showing
communities that source separation and outdoor. open-windrow
technology can be used effectively to handle and process Illinois’
commercial and institutional food organics waste stream with a
minimal amount of problems.
The 15-month project, which began in February 1994, is the
first in Illinois to address the viability of an integrated approach
applying source separation, open-windrow cornposting and high-
quality finished compost production methods to commercial and
institutional food waste.
Approximately 10 tons of food preparation waste, including
meat, from 13 sources are collected each week and delivered to
a 1½-acre all-weather composting pad made from crushed recy-
cled concrete and brick located at the University of Illinois.

Monica Duebbcrt is program and communications coordinator for the Office of Recycling and Waste Reduction at the Illinois Department of En-
ergy and Natural Resources. Richard Flammer is senior project manager for Organic Recycling, a minority-owned business located in Joliet. Illi-
nois. David J. Williams is professor of horticulture. College of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana.
 Follow the money
The project is a cooperative effort between
the Illinois Department of Energy and Nat-
ural Resources, University of Illinois at Cham-
paign/Urbana, Community Recycling Cen-
ter in Champaign, and Organic Recycling Inc.
of Illinois. Grants were provided to project
participants from ENR’s Office of Recycling
and Waste Reduction to cover a portion of
their project costs.
“Food waste is a category of the solid
waste stream with tremendous recycling po-
tential,” states ENR director John S. Moore.
“Approximately 8 percent of the solid waste
stream currently entering Illinois landfills is
composed of food wastes. This project is fo-
cused on developing technical and econom-
ic data associated with collecting and com-
posting organic food waste that can be ap-
plied to encourage a reduction in the amount
of such waste deposited in Illinois landfills.”
An earlier ENR-funded study conducted
by the Community Recycling Center in
Champaign, Illinois found food waste com-
posed 30 to 50 percent of the waste streams
from grocery stores and restaurants in the
Champaign/Urbana area (see “Commercial
food waste from restaurants and grocery
stores” in the February 1993 issue). In gen-
eral, food waste generated by grocery stores
tends to be cleaner than that from restaurants,
and food from grocery stores is often sur-
a Food waste can be composted with
less technology and reduce cost in
outdoor open-windows.
a Layering wood chips in the compost
pile controls odors and deters birds
and rodents.
a Contamination, at less than 10 per-
cent of delivered food waste, is
managed by manual removal and
screening.
a Finished compost is suitable for soil
amendment or mulch.
prisingly homogeneous, as if all the past-date
cabbages or all the apples were set out for col-
lection on the same day.
ENR provided $218,505 in state funding
for the project. The U of I College of Agri-
culture, Department of Horticulture received
a $55,000 grant for site construction and day-
to-day operation expenses, and additional
funding was provided by the U.S. Army Con-
struction Engineering Research Laboratory
in Champaign and the Institute of Environ-
mental Studies at the University of Illinois.
CRC was awarded $66,800 for collection and
outreach programs. Organic Recycling Inc.,
received $96,705 for providing technical as-
sistance and overall project management.
Data acquired from this project will help
ENR, communities and food waste genera-
tors gauge the feasibility of larger scale food
organics projects and will serve as a mode]
for promoting and funding future open-
windrow food waste composting efforts. Mid-
point project data are already being used by
the Illinois Compost Quality Standards Tech-
nical Advisory Committee and the Illinois
Environmental Protection Agency in devel-
oping state regulations on composting the or-
ganic (other than yard waste) portion of the
waste stream.
Collection and outreach
At present, 13 waste generators are partici-
pating in the study, including four grocery
stores, four restaurants, two schools, a nurs-
ing home, a food bank and a U of I residence
hall cafeteria.
Each generator is given a collection con-
tainer ranging from 90 gallons to four cubic
yards. The container size is determined by
collection frequency and the space available
for collection, though most sites use either a
90-gallon or a two-cubic-yard container. All
containers are tipped into a 17-cubic-yard
packer truck.
The collection frequency for each gener-
ator varies from two to six times a week, de-
pending on the volume produced and the pref-
erence of the generator. To maintain conve-
nience for the generator and to keep collec-
tion costs at the same rate, collection fre-
quency is the same as garbage.
Initial outreach efforts by CRC yielded
positive results from the majority of the waste
generators. Levels for inorganic contami-
nants (such as plastic wrappings and tin cans)
were typically low in the start-up and first-
quarter phase of each participant’s waste gen-
eration, but grew in the later stages, perhaps
because of personnel changes at generators
or the absence of ongoing education efforts.
Also, in summer months, some generators
had problems with maggots and flies in the
food waste and solved them by using plastic
bags to collect food waste materials, which
aggravated the contamination problems.
Instruction on preparing materials was
catered to the structure and needs of individ-
ual participants. Although some businesses
requested CRC to conduct a training session
for all of its staff, others felt management per-
sonnel could adequately transfer information
to their employees. Both education methods
showed varying degrees of effectiveness. Fol-
low-up instructional meetings were neces-
sary when management or staff turned over
and when organic contamination levels visi-
bly increased.
 Businesses that responded enthusiastical- logical oxygen demand levels. Water sam- Conclusions
ly and showed interest in environmental is- ples were collected upstream and downstream At the halfway mark of this study, primary
sues when they were first contacted to par- of the pad and tested for metals, salmonella data and initial observations by the partici-
ticipate increased the volume of diverted food and fecal coliform. pating investigators indicates a strong poten-
organics over time. Businesses whose inter- Because vectors, odor release and migra- tial for the outdoor, open-windrow method to
est was focused more on the financial rewards tion are primary concerns when composting be a viable system for composting the com-
of food organics diversion recovered amounts food organics in the outdoor, open-windrow mercial and institutional food organics that
below what could be expected from their method, extensive monitoring procedures are present in the Illinois waste stream.
stream. were established for gauging these two para- When the site operator was asked to iden-
meters. Checkpoints at measured, incremental tify the most critical processing difference be-
distances are used to record the migration po- tween yard debris and food waste compost-
Processing methodology tential of odors. Nocturnal visits to the com- ing, he unhesitatingly stated that compost site
Food waste is tipped directly into a 12” to 15” posting site and wildlife counts are carried operators must begin to process food scraps
thick pad of leaves and, after accessible con- out to determine if the feedstock was attract- immediately, or the site will begin to experi-
taminants are manually removed, it is cov- ing rodents or vectors of any kind. ence odor and vector problems.
ered with wood chips. In spite of the fact that
food organics are delivered frequently and in
low volumes, the stipulated recipe (one part
leaves, three to three-and-a-half parts wood
chips and one part food scraps) and the di-
mensions of the windrow are followed; chips
are applied in thin, successive layers of four
to six inches, the minimum necessary to biofil-
ldors and discourage vectors.
The food waste composting pilot project
got off to a rough start. The composting site
was originally scheduled to begin operations
in the autumn months, but permitting prob-
lems delayed its opening until February, when
leaves and wood chips, used as part of the
composting “recipe,” were frozen.
Because temperatures were well below
freezing during the first segment of the proj-
ect, the first batch of layered food waste and
ng agent was allowed to heat up with-
out mixing or aeration. Once the material
retained a temperature range suitable for mi-
ial activity, it was aerated. Subsequent
res were mixed and aerated on a 28-day
cycle using a windrow turner.
Most plastic bags were coincidentally re-
ed by the operation of the windrow turn-
er. Manual decontamination, i.e., hand pick-
ing is carried out after each turning, with the
bulk of items removed consisting of plastic
bottles, cans and glass. After three months of
composting, the material is left to cure for one
month and is then set aside for screening.

Onsite monitoring,
sampling and testing
The active windrows are monitored daily for
temperature, odor, vectors and physical char-
acteristics. Using measuring devices called
thermocouples, temperatures are recorded at
depths of 15,46 and 91 centimeters, with 12
readings taken at each depth for each
windrow. After three months, temperature
monitoring is reduced to once a week.
Each week, oxygen and moisture level
readings and sample collections for acidity-
salinity (pH), electrical conductivity,
organic carbon, nitrogen and carbon-to-
nitrogen ratios are taken. Random core sam-
ples are also collected for periodic monitor-
ing of heavy metals, fecal coliform and bio-

Resource Recycling January 1995 47


In general, odors have been managed by
using partially composted wood chip biofil-
ters and applying the same rules of thumb as
for yard waste composting, such as balanc-
ing the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio, porosity and
windrow size.
With the exception of a few industrious
crows, the facility attracted no wildlife. The
crows left when all undecomposed food scraps
were completely covered by wood chips.
Physical contamination of the material with
plastic bags, cans, bottles and other noncom-
postables is an ongoing problem, apparent-
ly directly correlated to shift changes and
turnover in the management and staff of waste
generators. The contamination level of the
feedstock is estimated at less than 10 percent
of the delivered food waste; manual removal
and screening have proven to effectively elim-
inate contaminants.
Because of the higher rates of contamina-
tion later in the project, the site operator rec-
ommends that on-site litter be collected at
least once a month and that a snow fence be
erected to stop plastic bags from being blown
off-site.
Water samples showed metals (nickel, cad-
mium, iron, lead, chromium, arsenic and se-
lenium) that did not exceed background lev-
els in the soil, and salmonella and fecal col-
48 Resource Recycling January 1995
Waste generation
for grocery stores
and restaurants
The earlier ENR-funded collection study
conducted by CRC showed that weights for
grocery store food waste and garbage could
be calculated based on store floor area. Old
corrugated containers, food and garbage
ranged from 52 to 62 pounds per day per
1,000 square feet of floor space.
Similar estimates for restaurants were
not as easily made, because generation did
not correlate well to seating capacity or to
number of employees; these parameters did,
however, provide a basis for estimating po-
tential ranges for waste volumes. The ranges
found in the study were 0.9 to 4.8 pounds
of waste per customer seat per day and 4.6
to 7.8 pounds per employee per day.
iform were not detected. Soluble salts levels
and the pH in the finished compost, at ap-
proximately 1.050 parts per million and 7.0,
respectively. appear favorable for the end
product to be suitable for horticultural uses
such as a soil amendment or mulch.
Specific economic data are not yet avail-
able, but in comparing iJated costs associat-
ed with the outdoor, open-windrow method
with in-vessel or hybrid systems, the num-
bers favor the low technology approach. And
in terms of compost quality, after 90 days, the
product was fairly mature and easily passed
through a 1/2-inch screen, though the site op-
erator believes that the food waste compost-
ing process could have been accelerated by
turning the materials earlier and more fre-
quently. Because this pilot project process-
es only small volumes of food waste, how-
ever, an accelerated schedule was not con-
sidered to be economically feasible.
“Food waste cornposting could be an im-
portant part of Illinois communities’ efforts to
reduce the amount of waste they dispose of,”
believes Pat Bumpus, manager of the ENR Of-
fice of Recycling and Waste Reduction Re-
source Recovery Section. “Results from this
pilot project will be useful in Illinois’ com-
munity solid waste planning activities.”
Overall, mid-point results of this pilot proj-
ect show positive signs of the viability of the
diversion, collection and application of the
outdoor, open-windrow cornposting technol-
ogy to the estimated 1.1 million tons of food
waste discarded in Illinois annually. RR