ORANGE — A local compost company plans to implement a residential food waste collection service within the next month.
Clear View Composting expects to offer scheduled weekly or biweekly pickups starting in mid-September. Owner Rick Innes explained he or one of his employees will retrieve customers’ company-issued five-gallon buckets curbside and replace them with clean ones.
“The rationale was that the main point of this business is to target food waste. We have to take in a lot of other material because food waste by itself does not compost well,” Innes explained. “It has to be mixed with other stuff, because food waste is both too wet and too rich in nitrogen and poor in carbon.
“Thanks to some training I got at the Maine Compost School years ago, we’ve been practicing what’s called recipe-based composting, where you make a plan of ‘X’ amount of this material, ‘Y’ amount of that material, and so on,” he added. “And we use that as a guide.”
Basic pricing for residential food waste collection will be $6, though if there are multiple customers within roughly a fifth of a mile of one another, they will get the service for $4.
Innes said he plans to run the service in a similar fashion to The Compost Cooperative in Greenfield, in which customers select a number of weekly or biweekly pickups and pay upfront. He said there have been inquiries by a couple of people locally and by at least eight potential customers in Gill, Greenfield and Montague.
Innes explained mixed material is placed into aerated static beds on site at 159 Quabbin Blvd. for at least three or four months, receiving an airflow through white pipes. Once it is partially broken down, it is moved over to windrows — rows of organic waste — to continue the process. The screened finished product is sold for $50 per cubic yard while unscreened costs $40 for the same amount. For $70, the business also offers a quarter-inch screened product that is more pleasant-looking, he added.
Clear View Composting can be reached at 978-413-4455.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.