Chesapeake Compost Company (CCC) has started operating in the Curtis Bay section of Baltimore as of October 1. The company will process 180 tons per week of separated discard food and 180 tons per week of wood chips into finished compost delivered to the 54,000 square foot facility by local businesses and institutions.
The facility is a welcomed piece of infrastructure that will allow Baltimore to leap ahead of most cities in the national trend to recover food scraps before they are mixed in with the waste stream and headed for landfills or incinerators. This trend is reinforced by local organizations such as Atlanta’s Zero Waste Zones, created by Elemental Impact, for downtown restaurants and hotels, and national organizations such as the National Restaurant Association. Over 150 cities now recover food scraps from households as well. In-town, permitted food composting facilities help lower the cost of managing these materials. Wilmington, DE, and Cincinnati are two other cities that now have in-town facilities.
The Baltimore facility, located at 4501 Curtis Avenue, was started by Vinnie Bevivino and Adam Schwartz, two veteran employees of ECO City Farms, Edmonston, MD a pioneering composting and food growing non-profit. CCC will employ 10 workers and handle 16,000 tons of materials annually when at full capacity.
