If you live in the
greater Seattle area and put your garden and food trimmings out at the curb,
chances are they wind up at Cedar Grove Composting's facility in Maple Valley,
Washington or its newest site in Everett, Washington. There they are transformed
into Cedar Grove Compost- that rich, dark humus our gardens need to thrive.
Processing over a million pounds of recoverable organics per day, Cedar Grove has
one of the largest, independently owned
composting operations in the United States.
Cedar Grove began
operating in 1989 when it was selected to process Seattle's "clean
green" yard waste into compost. Diverting this recyclable material was
viewed as a way of reducing landfill dependency. Program planners estimated
that Seattle residents would generate 13,000 tons of trimmings annually. By the
end of 1989 they had, in fact, contributed a whopping 45,000 tons. With the
addition of more suburban cities over the years, and the diversion of
residential and commercial food added in 2005 throughout the area, the two composting
plants in King and
Snohomish Counties have the permitted capacity to process over 400,000 tons of
commingled yard and food scraps. The climate impact of this major composting
program means the greenhouse gas avoidance equivalent of powering 40,000 homes for a year or the annual
emissions created by 54,000 American drivers
Since the program's
inception, Cedar Grove has evolved its technology from open windrows, static
piles and aerated static piles to the state of the art membrane laminate
technology used in a section of Maple Valley and throughout the Everett plant.
With this technology, recovered organics are ground and then covered with a
special fabric in 500 ton heaps,
resting on a fully automated aeration/leachate collection trenching
system. Each heap is monitored separately by computer, and the temperatures and
oxygen level held consistent throughout the process. At the end of an 8 week cycle, the material is ready for
screening, then is aged a bit longer where it further breaks down into rich,
quality compost used throughout northwest gardens.
Cedar Grove Compost has
been subjected to many tests, most notably by the City of Seattle and the
University of Washington. The City tested Cedar Grove Compost for major and
minor elements, weed seed germination and heavy metal content. The compost bore
significant amounts of major and micro nutrients essential for plant growth and
development. Most chemical compounds tested for were not detected and none were
present at levels harmful to plants or people. No weed seeds were germinated in
the tests corroborating the extensive heat cycle that the shredded material
goes through.
Plants grown in
compost-amended soil significantly outperformed plants raised in unamended
soil, according to a University of Washington field test. Basil plants weighed
16 times more than plants grown in the unamended soil. The test further showed
that simply mulching with Cedar Grove Compost improved plant growth by fifty
percent. "There are a lot of loyal Cedar Grove users in our local
gardening community," said Katie Bach, Horticulturist for Cedar Grove
Composting. "We work with expert gardeners and those that are just getting
started, and people are really
starting to understand the
importance of using all-natural gardening techniques to keep rivers and
waterways clean. Using compost is a big part of that, and our community
programs provide good information on how to use compost in a variety of
applications."
Composting is
nature's way of recycling, replenshing the soil and nourishing plant growth. The high-tech
system at
Cedar Grove Composting simply helps Mother Nature to do it more quickly! To
learn more, visit www.cgcompost.com.
