Updated, Sept. 24
In the wake of the shutdown of the only large scale organic-waste processing program on the Island and amid rising disposal costs across the country, local stakeholders are crafting a plan for the development of a new, industrial-size composting facility.
The Martha’s Vineyard Organics Recovery Committee — consisting of local municipal authorities, solid waste experts, and other stakeholders for the Island’s waste and disposal services — is also working on short-term solutions with the recent loss of a composting operation in Vineyard Haven, but members have hopes of building a new processing facility in Edgartown that will be capable of handling more than 1,000 pounds of food waste annually.
The group has a promising location in mind but are not ready to publicly reveal the specific area, worried that it could impact plans.
On Monday, Woody Filley, manager of the Martha’s Vineyard Vision Fellowship Organics Project and waste consultant James McSweeney — along with Don Hatch, manager of the Martha’s Vineyard Refuse District — toured the location to consider adding the industrial-sized facility for a composting operation. McSweeney, a regional expert in composting, has been tasked with shaping the project scope that could influence the future of the Island’s waste management strategy.
The Martha’s Vineyard Organics Recovery Committee is at an early stage in the process, but stakeholders have said that a large-scale facility is badly needed.
“As of right now, we take all our food waste and mix it with all the other waste, then that goes to what used to be Seamass and is now Reworld, those trucks then go over and buy compost and bring it back here and so my question is does that make sense?” said Filley.
In the short term, the committee is exploring ways to deploy food waste handling technologies more quickly in order to maintain the momentum created from a food composting pilot program that worked in conjunction with Bruno’s Rolloff, the Island’s primary waste management facility.
The pilot program, which processed over three million tons of food waste on Island Grown Initiative’s farm in Vineyard Haven, demonstrated the feasibility and need, but the old in-drum food processing machine couldn’t keep up with the continuously growing demand – constantly finding new ways to break down. It was forced to halt operations on Sept. 1.
The Department of Agriculture recommends against composting on farm land because the infrastructure required to process food waste and ensure a food-safe production environment at the same time is challenging to maintain.
“We’ve suffered many thousands of dollars in crop losses and infrastructure damage due to rodents and birds that waste handling brought onto the farm, our lack of depackaging and screening equipment has resulted in literal tons of trash getting buried or otherwise blown around our property over the years,” said Tim Connelley, the Island Grown Initiative farms director, in an email obtained by the Times. “While we generally consider this pilot with the Recovery Committee a success, we think the program has to take a step forward to more efficiently provide the service to the Island while removing the processing burden from production farms.”
Adding pressure to the recent initiative because of no location currently available, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection requires the collection and processing of commercial food waste with the likelihood of regulations for residential food waste on the horizon.
Meanwhile, as the Martha’s Vineyard Organics Recovery Committee works on a new composting facility, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission is also visiting each town’s select board to bring awareness to the rising disposal costs, diminishing options for dumping, and potential solutions. Their goal is to inform local officials, so each town can determine for themselves what steps to take moving forward.
“Right now it costs more to dispose of recyclables than trash,” said Adam Turner, Executive Director of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission during a presentation to the Aquinnah Select Board on Tuesday, Sept. 3. “If we sorted our recyclables, we might get more value.”
The Martha’s Vineyard Commission is considering the formation of a regional task force. The goal of the team would be to bring together local waste experts, haulers, and decision-makers to review current conditions and explore whether certain waste streams can be separated and repurposed to increase efficiency of waste management on the Island.
“Should we be shipping glass off the Island or could we crush and tumble it here and use it for our roadbeds, or are there other portions of the waste stream we could get value out of here?” said Kate Warner, founder of the Vineyard Energy Project, to the Aquinnah town select board.
As New England runs out of space, options for disposing of waste off Island will become increasingly further away, causing disposal prices to rise. In 2023, the Steamship Authority reported that 2,110 trucks hauled waste off the Island and organic waste was a significant portion of that waste stream.
“The people responsible for getting the waste off the Island do an incredible job, especially with the condition the steamship is running in,” said Filley. “It’s a transportation person’s worst nightmare, they deserve a lot of credit and are smart people. We hope to put together a task force at a regional level to take advantage of people’s collective talents from the Island to save us money and resources.”
For more information on how waste is changing on Island, visit the Martha’s Vineyard Commision website for a comprehensive solid waste report, https://www.mvcommission.org/
This post was updated to reflect the amount of waste the planned composter would process.
Is it possible for scam victims to receive their money back? Yes, if you have been a victim of a fraud from an unregulated investing platform or any other scam, you may be able to reclaim what was stolen from you, but only if you report it to the appropriate authorities. You may reclaim what you’ve lost with the appropriate strategy and evidence. Those in charge of these unregulated platforms would most likely try to persuade you that what happened to your money was an unfortunate occurrence when, in reality, it was a sophisticated theft. If you or someone you know has been a victim of these situations, you should know that there are resources available to assist you. Simply do a search ACCESSRECOVERYCONSULTANT @ GMAIL COM . It is never too late if you have the right information, your sanity can be restored.
I encourage everyone to compost.
I have perfected a rodent proof one cubic yard
(3 ft x 3 ft x 3 ft) compost bin with ground contact
No digging in of posts
it will handle ALL
food scraps including meat and fish and has an easy open sliding
top that makes it easy to dump full barrels of yard waste into ,
with easy access to finished compost.
So many opportunities for change!
Recyclable packaging. No packaging.
Cloth bags. Compost at home—keep the burden at our own living space, not at an industrial facility.
Solar on every roof.
Compost in our own garden.
Vote for liberals, just this once.
Vote for liberal, do-nothing meaninglessness and antisemitism? Thanks, but no thanks. Plenty of farmers, gardeners, and regular Americans of no particular party allegiance who would never vote for hypocritical idiocy know how to compost and bring their own bags to the market, even if they don’t have rich people’s enviro toys to make themselves holier than thou. The morally superior liberal left are bait and switch cultists. Biden/Harris had their chance on these eco/enviro matters that liberals claim as their own, but we’ve been shown what these pro-Hamas liberals were capable of doing: Nothing. Nada. Zip. Liberal baloney is tiresome in its untruthfulness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hcwDNs_vJE
Jackie– yeah, it’s all about anti semitism.
It’s amazing that you can go off on a vile
hate filled rant about liberals all being anti semites
when commenting on an article about compost.
I wonder if you heard trump’s pre-emptive anti-semitic trope
about blaming Jews if he loses the election ?
He says if you’re Jewish and you don’t vote for him
“You should have your head examined” because
” Israel will face total annihilation if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected.”
“Rockets will rain down from above until the Iron Dome has been exhausted,” Trump said.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-jewish-voters-antisemitism/
And we know a vote for a third party candidate or
not voting at all is a vote for Harris– And I for one don’t want
Israel to be annihilated– I have friends who live there ,
after all, and I support Israel’s right to exist.
Always have always will. And I will take this opportunity
to thank the ADL for the nice calendar they sent me recently.
But I’m not voting for trump because everything he says
is a lie, among other reasons, including he is an anti-semitic
racist. So— careful with your vote, Jackie…
And you know, the only reason I am bringing this
stuff up is to respond to your
off topic comment.
Don you are the king of off topic comments.
Yes, antisemites are having a field day with Trump’s statements. No one takes voting advice from Israel haters who falsely claim that fighting terrorists who are torturing, kidnapping, and intentionally killing Jews is genocide and war crimes. Meanwhile, composters and non-composters alike are without a compos mentis president. Dems don’t care. Supporting the ADL means recognizing their work of fighting against antisemitism takes place all over, even in small community newspaper comment features. Objecting to that fight is antisemitic.
I don’t think it’s helpful to frame every issue as a political viewpoint. Composting is not a liberal vs. radical issue. Composting is not a Democrat vs. Republican issue. It IS a “do the right thing” issue. There are PLENTY of Liberal Democrats who do not recycle or compost; have not limited — much less given up completely! — their use of air flight to fulfill travel desires; and continue to use a clothes dryer when the sun & wind are available for free.
Juleann — I’m a liberal democrat. I recycle, I compost
I have not used my dryer in years, I “harvest” rainwater
for my organic garden, and every lightbulb
in my house is an LED.
I have republican friend who does not recycle,
does not have a compost bin, uses his dryer for every
load of laundry he does and has incandescent light bulbs
because he “doesn’t like the government telling him
what lightbulbs to use”
So — that’s my anecdotal proof that liberals are
“green” and republicans are “brown”.
Apparently you are a republican, and I have
seen republicans cite anecdotal stories to confirm their
beliefs. Like if one illegal immigrant commits a crime…
Look at the comments here :
https://www.mvtimes.com/2024/09/04/brazilian-national-charged-rape-arrested-ice/
So here it is– my anecdotal observation —
proof that Liberals do all that stuff
and conservatives don’t. Case closed.
But let me ask you, Juleann — do you recycle, do you
have a compost bin? ( you could buy one from me if not )
do you use a dryer ? Have you flown anywhere in the last year ?
And let me ask one more simple question — do you eat meat ?
https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/02/01/global-elimination-of-meat-production-could-save-the-planet/
Let me just ask you for your opinion to this question.
Do republicans or democrats eat more meat ?
I’m Just asking for your opinion.
I already have the facts—
So let’s be clear, you must be a bad person if you eat meat, use a clothes dryer, enjoy light bulbs that actually provide sufficient light, don’t compost because it attracts rodents ( no need to comment I’m sure your system doesn’t) and don’t recycle? Then my question to you is, what do you feed your unicorn?
John I’m not saying anyone is ” bad ”
I am just pointing out that some behaviors
and habits are more damaging to the environment
and put more strain on our infrastructure than others.
And I feed my unicorn the same thing you feed your Unicorn.
If you want sufficient light you buy 200 watt incandescent equivalent LED light bulbs that consume 20 watts that are very soft white at 2400K.
They last 20 years.
$3.99 at Ocean State Job lot.
Juleann, really like your viewpoint on renewables.
Respectfully disagree that everything isn’t political. For instance, the white supremacists in the south have been working for years (and taking advantage of situations that occur, like the presidency of Obama) to cultivate new support for racist views, even if the individual never joins a white supremacist organization. One such example is vouchers for private schools so that the white supremacists can indoctrinate children to also be white supremacists. There is no oversight of private schools to “interfere” with religious (white supremacist) teaching. Not only will vouchers create more racism, it will gut public education in the states that have already implemented those policies.
If you don’t believe me, google Mike Huckabee’s children education pamphlets.
It really is not at all helpful or even smart to frame everything as a partisan political issue.
Especially when such framing is based on assumptions that all MV Times readers—all residents—live in houses with yards and all businesses have access to plenty of space for effective composting.
Virtually everyone produces organic waste, but many have no way to use compost.
For instance, I wonder whether the future residents of the nine tiny units at 97 Spring Street will be composting their organic waste, then spreading the usable compost they have produced on their gardens (/sn) (not to mention conserving power by hanging out all their laundry to dry).
Ideal for the Vineyard would be to find a location where organic waste could not only be composted but also packaged and made into a saleable product.
There is some information here:
https://www.goodstartpackaging.com/commercial-composting/
The blurb reads:
“Collectively, individuals can make a massive impact on the health of our earth by composting regularly. However, with the sheer amount of waste that humanity produces, we increasingly require the help of commercial composting technology.”
It is a short read and includes this info:
“In-Vessel Composting (IVC)
While every composting method has pros and cons, in-vessel composting is considered the most cost-effective way to compost commercially. In-vessel composting does not have the biological limitations of aerated static piles or require as much space as windrow composting.
“Organic materials are first shredded and mixed with this method, then deposited into a commercial composting machine. The device controls temperatures, hydration, and aeration. Additionally, the machine can rotate or churn the composition to ensure that every part decomposes at the same rate.
“The hot compost is sanitized by high temperatures that kill off harmful bacteria and weed seeds with the temperature controlled and monitored. Once complete, the compost is left to mature in an enclosure to stabilize before screening if not already screened.
“Naturally, the size of the machine will determine how much compost can be processed. That said, it can take less than a month to go from unused organic waste to fertile soil. While an industrial composting machine and IVC infrastructure requires a greater investment upfront, it can yield the best results for commercial composting companies.”
Nantucket has a high-temperature Bedminster digester at their landfill.
It might be worth picking someone’s brains over there.
See also:
https://www.wateronline.com/doc/bedminster-bioconversion-corp-0001
Correction re Bedminster.
The company (and its patents) has been bought and sold a few times and now seems to have become Bedminster International of Ireland.
Waste Option Nantucket operates the Nantucket landfill, and that must include the Bedminster installation.
The landill sells a compost called Nantucket Gold.
Here is an Instagram post with a photo:
https://www.instagram.com/fleurnantucket/p/C4bdqXkuiWC/
Katherine– everything in you comment was great –UNTIL
you started hawking for a foreign company.
I can’t believe you have made the conversion to hating
America and supporting “Comrad Kamala” and the
corrupt Biden family. — I don’t know what they have to do
with it, but AMERICA FIRST !!!!!!
But anyway, this foreign company is taking away American jobs.
And many of them are white jobs !!!
We should be taxing them with tariffs that Americans will pay– I think ???-
and making these compostey
thingies or whatever they are in AMERICA!
MAGA —–
Oh. by the way, in case some people don’t get it–
This is sarcasm …
Thank you Juleann.
If a composter with a compost box he built all by himself goes on social media to prove a moral superiority with enough braggadocio to rival Mr Trump, but a meat eater goes to bed at sundown so he doesn’t have to turn on any lightbulbs, whose gift to humankind is more valuable?
Comments are closed.