June 26, 2006
Hands-on education | Students at the Maine Compost School get dirty learning the art and science of commercial-scale composting
By Douglas Rooks
What would you do if a 40-ton sperm whale carcass washed up on your shoreline? You might call Mark Hutchinson, a member of the Maine Compost Team, a state interagency task force that has proved an enduring addition to Maine's public services. The team also serves as the primary faculty of the Maine Compost School, a successful nine-year-old nonprofit enterprise that has launched more than 40 commercial composting operations in Maine and educated students from all over the world.
On a recent morning, Hutchinson got such a call after a dead sperm whale ˆ a rare sight in the Gulf of Maine ˆ was found floating off Mount Desert Island. News coverage focused on plans by College of the Atlantic to salvage and display the skeleton of the rare mammal. But Hutchinson was working on a more immediate problem: what to do with the carcass, which was already decomposing when it reached the shore. A few hours later, he had located a salvager from Southwest Harbor who was ready to go to work and compost the whale.
It was perhaps not a typical day's work, but that kind of resourcefulness from the compost team has helped make Maine ˆ and the Maine Compost School ˆ a leader in composting, both for towns seeking to reduce their waste streams and businesses seeking answers to environmental and regulatory headaches. "There's a whole cluster of companies that have entered the [composting] business in the last 10 years, and that's a tribute to the value of the compost school," said Carlos Quijano, whose own business is a testimony to the compost team's teachings.
Quijano was between jobs in 1997 when he became intrigued by an unusual problem developing along the downeast coast: New aquaculture enterprises were producing tons of fish and shellfish waste, and landfills were balking at accepting the wet, smelly material.
Quijano, a former investment banker with Chase Manhattan, had set up his own consulting business in Maine, and landed a contract with Great Eastern Mussels Farms to find answers to the disposal problem. His solution involved mixing salmon waste from the company's vast offshore pens with cull from commercial blueberry fields to produce an excellent compost ˆ an idea based on recipes developed at the Maine Compost School.
Called Penobscot Mix, it is still the best seller for the firm Quijano started in Portland, Coast of Maine Organic Products. While he does not disclose sales figures, he says it is in the "mid-range" of New England compost firms, employing 15 people at three different sites, including one in Washington County. (Nationwide statistics on the size of the composting industry aren't available.)
Quijano's company is among the largest that can be directly attributed to the compost school, but Hutchinson counts 43 alumni among the 450 total attendees of the week-long course who have created direct business applications in Maine. Beginning on June 19, 20 more students were set to arrive for this summer's session, including the manager of a poultry operation in India where space to handle waste is at a premium. In past sessions, representatives from a Toyota plant in Kentucky studied how to compost cafeteria waste, while several European livestock managers were seeking to make composting commercially viable.
From waste to fertilizer
The Maine Compost School got started in 1997, a few years after the compost team came together. In 1993, representatives from the Department of Agriculture, Department of Environmental Protection, State Planning Office, and University of Maine Cooperative Extension Service met to figure out ways the state could meet the 50% recycling goal set by the Legislature in 1989. Organic material represents about 12% of the waste stream, representing everything from food waste to sewage sludge, with grass clippings, agricultural products and manure mixed in. Composting uses organic processes to break down nutrient-rich material into its constituent elements ˆ basically turning waste into useful soil additives. But the process from barnyard or trash bin to dried fertilizer is not always easy, so the team decided that while composting was a good idea, businesses and municipalities needed a lot of encouragement to adopt it.
The compost school was the next logical step in spreading the word and showing that composting is viable both on a small and large scale. Originally split between the University of Maine's Orono campus and the Highmoor Farm research station in Monmouth, classes are now held in June and October in Monmouth, in order to be closer to the daily field-trip destinations that are a big part of the school's curriculum. "It made more sense to stay in one place, to get the maximum out of the time we have together," Hutchinson said.
The impressive barn at Highmoor is a landmark along Route 202, and an appropriate setting for a school that focuses on getting dirty. The compost school students spend their mornings in the classroom, which is an old apple sorting room. After the morning lecture and discussion, students begin building compost piles outside with ingredients they've chosen themselves, learning mixing techniques and how to recognize when successful composting is underway. When it started, the compost school was unique, helping it attract students from around the world. They've come from Poland, Angola, Norway, Argentina, South Africa, Finland, Morocco and Bangladesh. Today, the school doesn't do much recruiting ˆ prospective students hear by word of mouth and via the Internet. It undoubtedly helps that a "compost school" search on Google immediately turns up the Maine program. But other schools are now active in other states, including Maryland, Kansas, Colorado and Louisiana.
At Highmoor and during field trips to commercial composting operations such as the Wilton Sludge Compost Facility, students observe the basics of composting techniques.
Concentrated material, such as animal waste, is usually balanced with lighter, drier elements, such as shredded paper and wood chips. But each student's test pile is different, and trouble shooting ˆ when things start to rot rather than compost ˆ is a key part of the program.
Creating composters
Andy Omo, who started a composting operation for the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport after attending the school, said the science in the course was what was most valuable for him. "The chemical reactions are more complicated than you'd think," he said. "It isn't just a matter of putting stuff in a pile and turning it over every now and then."
Omo had been a backyard composter for years, and was able to turn the organic waste at the inn ˆ largely leftover food and shredded office paper ˆ into a usable product. "It's an important part of the way we do business, and returning organics to the farms that supply us completes the cycle," Omo said.
Another graduate, Ron Slater, manages the Sandy River Waste Recycling Association's facility in Farmington, which serves 21 towns in Franklin County and adjacent areas. He's run several composting operations and remains in awe of the expertise represented by the compost team and other faculty members. "These people have forgotten more about composting than I'll ever know," he said. "I'm probably due for a refresher course."
Originally set up for leaf, yard and industrial forest waste, Sandy River is now running a pilot food-composting project with cooperation from the University of Maine at Farmington, Franklin Regional Hospital and restaurants. Slater says it's going well, and he envisions expanding the program to residential users with sealed five-gallon pails, just as cans, bottles and papers are now put out at the curb.
There's more to be done. Hutchinson said two largely untapped sources for compost are the horses Mainers keep on small lots and the supermarket dumpsters that often are full of expired produce and other food waste. A pilot project that Hannaford Bros. supermarkets started this year, which now involves just a handful of stores, could be expanded considerably, he said.
Although composting has satisfying "green" connotations, making it work as a business means gaining revenue both from intake and outgo, Hutchinson said. Typically, businesses collecting waste that can be composted charge for pickups, but they also need to gain revenue from the compost they produce. Bulk deliveries to farms and large gardening operations are still the most common means of selling compost, but increasingly companies such as Coast of Maine are investing in bagging equipment that can supply a home and garden center. "The increase in value at the retail level is at least ten-fold, often higher," Hutchinson said. "This isn't a business with high margins, so you have to be creative to keep ahead of the curve."
Hutchinson adds that the benefits extend beyond what composting firms can charge their clients. Agricultural land across the country ˆ and in Maine ˆ has been depleted of key ingredients by intensive cultivation and fertilizing. Potato acreage in Aroostook County typically has less than one percent organic material in the soil, Hutchinson said, and even large amounts of fertilizer won't necessarily result in increased yields. Ideally, such soil would have three to five percent organics, but even more marginal increase can reduce runoff and the need for fertilizers.
While "organic" is a popular term with consumers, Hutchinson prefers the word "sustainable" in describing what composting can do for farms and gardens. Bagged compost is already competitive with chemical fertilizers, he said, and has significant growth potential given the popularity of sustainable farming techniques for everything from vegetables to dairy. "It's not just about being green, but about being smart," Hutchinson said. "We have to start seeing the whole picture, and this is a good place to start."
On a recent morning, Hutchinson got such a call after a dead sperm whale ˆ a rare sight in the Gulf of Maine ˆ was found floating off Mount Desert Island. News coverage focused on plans by College of the Atlantic to salvage and display the skeleton of the rare mammal. But Hutchinson was working on a more immediate problem: what to do with the carcass, which was already decomposing when it reached the shore. A few hours later, he had located a salvager from Southwest Harbor who was ready to go to work and compost the whale.
It was perhaps not a typical day's work, but that kind of resourcefulness from the compost team has helped make Maine ˆ and the Maine Compost School ˆ a leader in composting, both for towns seeking to reduce their waste streams and businesses seeking answers to environmental and regulatory headaches. "There's a whole cluster of companies that have entered the [composting] business in the last 10 years, and that's a tribute to the value of the compost school," said Carlos Quijano, whose own business is a testimony to the compost team's teachings.
Quijano was between jobs in 1997 when he became intrigued by an unusual problem developing along the downeast coast: New aquaculture enterprises were producing tons of fish and shellfish waste, and landfills were balking at accepting the wet, smelly material.
Quijano, a former investment banker with Chase Manhattan, had set up his own consulting business in Maine, and landed a contract with Great Eastern Mussels Farms to find answers to the disposal problem. His solution involved mixing salmon waste from the company's vast offshore pens with cull from commercial blueberry fields to produce an excellent compost ˆ an idea based on recipes developed at the Maine Compost School.
Called Penobscot Mix, it is still the best seller for the firm Quijano started in Portland, Coast of Maine Organic Products. While he does not disclose sales figures, he says it is in the "mid-range" of New England compost firms, employing 15 people at three different sites, including one in Washington County. (Nationwide statistics on the size of the composting industry aren't available.)
Quijano's company is among the largest that can be directly attributed to the compost school, but Hutchinson counts 43 alumni among the 450 total attendees of the week-long course who have created direct business applications in Maine. Beginning on June 19, 20 more students were set to arrive for this summer's session, including the manager of a poultry operation in India where space to handle waste is at a premium. In past sessions, representatives from a Toyota plant in Kentucky studied how to compost cafeteria waste, while several European livestock managers were seeking to make composting commercially viable.
From waste to fertilizer
The Maine Compost School got started in 1997, a few years after the compost team came together. In 1993, representatives from the Department of Agriculture, Department of Environmental Protection, State Planning Office, and University of Maine Cooperative Extension Service met to figure out ways the state could meet the 50% recycling goal set by the Legislature in 1989. Organic material represents about 12% of the waste stream, representing everything from food waste to sewage sludge, with grass clippings, agricultural products and manure mixed in. Composting uses organic processes to break down nutrient-rich material into its constituent elements ˆ basically turning waste into useful soil additives. But the process from barnyard or trash bin to dried fertilizer is not always easy, so the team decided that while composting was a good idea, businesses and municipalities needed a lot of encouragement to adopt it.
The compost school was the next logical step in spreading the word and showing that composting is viable both on a small and large scale. Originally split between the University of Maine's Orono campus and the Highmoor Farm research station in Monmouth, classes are now held in June and October in Monmouth, in order to be closer to the daily field-trip destinations that are a big part of the school's curriculum. "It made more sense to stay in one place, to get the maximum out of the time we have together," Hutchinson said.
The impressive barn at Highmoor is a landmark along Route 202, and an appropriate setting for a school that focuses on getting dirty. The compost school students spend their mornings in the classroom, which is an old apple sorting room. After the morning lecture and discussion, students begin building compost piles outside with ingredients they've chosen themselves, learning mixing techniques and how to recognize when successful composting is underway. When it started, the compost school was unique, helping it attract students from around the world. They've come from Poland, Angola, Norway, Argentina, South Africa, Finland, Morocco and Bangladesh. Today, the school doesn't do much recruiting ˆ prospective students hear by word of mouth and via the Internet. It undoubtedly helps that a "compost school" search on Google immediately turns up the Maine program. But other schools are now active in other states, including Maryland, Kansas, Colorado and Louisiana.
At Highmoor and during field trips to commercial composting operations such as the Wilton Sludge Compost Facility, students observe the basics of composting techniques.
Concentrated material, such as animal waste, is usually balanced with lighter, drier elements, such as shredded paper and wood chips. But each student's test pile is different, and trouble shooting ˆ when things start to rot rather than compost ˆ is a key part of the program.
Creating composters
Andy Omo, who started a composting operation for the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport after attending the school, said the science in the course was what was most valuable for him. "The chemical reactions are more complicated than you'd think," he said. "It isn't just a matter of putting stuff in a pile and turning it over every now and then."
Omo had been a backyard composter for years, and was able to turn the organic waste at the inn ˆ largely leftover food and shredded office paper ˆ into a usable product. "It's an important part of the way we do business, and returning organics to the farms that supply us completes the cycle," Omo said.
Another graduate, Ron Slater, manages the Sandy River Waste Recycling Association's facility in Farmington, which serves 21 towns in Franklin County and adjacent areas. He's run several composting operations and remains in awe of the expertise represented by the compost team and other faculty members. "These people have forgotten more about composting than I'll ever know," he said. "I'm probably due for a refresher course."
Originally set up for leaf, yard and industrial forest waste, Sandy River is now running a pilot food-composting project with cooperation from the University of Maine at Farmington, Franklin Regional Hospital and restaurants. Slater says it's going well, and he envisions expanding the program to residential users with sealed five-gallon pails, just as cans, bottles and papers are now put out at the curb.
There's more to be done. Hutchinson said two largely untapped sources for compost are the horses Mainers keep on small lots and the supermarket dumpsters that often are full of expired produce and other food waste. A pilot project that Hannaford Bros. supermarkets started this year, which now involves just a handful of stores, could be expanded considerably, he said.
Although composting has satisfying "green" connotations, making it work as a business means gaining revenue both from intake and outgo, Hutchinson said. Typically, businesses collecting waste that can be composted charge for pickups, but they also need to gain revenue from the compost they produce. Bulk deliveries to farms and large gardening operations are still the most common means of selling compost, but increasingly companies such as Coast of Maine are investing in bagging equipment that can supply a home and garden center. "The increase in value at the retail level is at least ten-fold, often higher," Hutchinson said. "This isn't a business with high margins, so you have to be creative to keep ahead of the curve."
Hutchinson adds that the benefits extend beyond what composting firms can charge their clients. Agricultural land across the country ˆ and in Maine ˆ has been depleted of key ingredients by intensive cultivation and fertilizing. Potato acreage in Aroostook County typically has less than one percent organic material in the soil, Hutchinson said, and even large amounts of fertilizer won't necessarily result in increased yields. Ideally, such soil would have three to five percent organics, but even more marginal increase can reduce runoff and the need for fertilizers.
While "organic" is a popular term with consumers, Hutchinson prefers the word "sustainable" in describing what composting can do for farms and gardens. Bagged compost is already competitive with chemical fertilizers, he said, and has significant growth potential given the popularity of sustainable farming techniques for everything from vegetables to dairy. "It's not just about being green, but about being smart," Hutchinson said. "We have to start seeing the whole picture, and this is a good place to start."
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