Composting economics

Coker, Craig S.; King, Mark; Gilbert, Jane; Rivin, Jonathan M.; Wentz, Rudy; Schwarz, Mary; Faucette, Britt; Tyler, Rod

doi:10.1016/b978-0-323-85602-7.00016-9

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…To achieve its compost-related diversion, soil health, and mitigation goals, the State of California will need to add 5–8 million tonnes/year of additional compost capacity to handle municipal solid waste material newly diverted away from landfills. , The distribution and size of these new facilities will depend on regional attributes, like land use in the area, feedstock availability, end-market access, and air quality and community health considerations. Though it possesses numerous beneficial qualities, compost is an expensive product to transport, as it is water-rich and heavy .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio-environmental Opportunities for Organic Material Management in California’s Sustainability Transition

Hall,

Ponomareva,

Torn

et al. 2024

Environ. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Contemporary resource management is doubly burdened by high rates of organic material disposal in landfills, generating potent greenhouse gases (GHG), and globally degraded soils, which threaten future food security. Expansion of composting can provide a resilient alternative, by avoiding landfill GHG emissions, returning valuable nutrients to the soil to ensure continued agricultural production, and sequestering carbon while supporting local communities. Recognizing this opportunity, California has set ambitious organics diversion targets in the Short-Lived Climate Pollutant Law (SB1383) which will require significant increases (5 to 8 million tonnes per year) in organic material processing capacity. This paper develops a spatial optimization model to consider how to handle this flow of additional material while achieving myriad social and ecological benefits through compost production. We consider community-based and on-farm facilities alongside centralized, largescale infrastructure to explore decentralized and diversified alternative futures of composting infrastructure in the state of California. We find using a diversity of facilities would provide opportunity for cost savings while achieving significant emissions reductions of approximately 3.4 ± 1 MMT CO 2 e and demonstrate that it is possible to incorporate community protection into compost infrastructure planning while meeting economic and environmental objectives.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio-environmental Opportunities for Organic Material Management in California’s Sustainability Transition

Hall,

Ponomareva,

Torn

et al. 2024

Environ. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Site Suitability and Air Pollution Impacts of Composting Infrastructure for California’s Organic Waste Diversion Law

Harrison,

McNeil,

Dai

et al. 2024

Environ. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

California's organic waste diversion law, SB 1383, mandates a 75% reduction in organics disposal by 2025 to reduce landfill methane emissions. Composting will likely be the primary alternative to landfilling, and 75−100 new large-scale composting facilities must be sited in the state to meet its diversion goal. We developed a strategy for evaluating site suitability for commercial composting by incorporating land-use, economic, and environmental justice criteria. In our Baseline scenario, we identified 899 candidate sites, and nearly all are within a cost-effective hauling distance of cropland and rangelands for compost application. About half of sites, mostly in rural areas, are not within a cost-effective collection distance of enough municipal organics to supply an average-sized facility. Conversely, sites near cities have greater access to organics but cause greater health damages from ammonia and volatile organic compounds emitted during the composting process. The additional required composting capacity corresponds to $266−355 million in annual damages from air pollution. However, this excludes avoided emissions from landfilling, and damages could be reduced by 56% if aerated static piles are used instead of windrows. Siting a higher number of smaller decentralized facilities could also help equally distribute air pollution to avoid concentrating burdens in certain communities.

show abstract

Composting economics

Cited by 2 publications

References 2 publications

Socio-environmental Opportunities for Organic Material Management in California’s Sustainability Transition

Socio-environmental Opportunities for Organic Material Management in California’s Sustainability Transition

Site Suitability and Air Pollution Impacts of Composting Infrastructure for California’s Organic Waste Diversion Law

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About