Harbor View Composting Facility Tour

Back in July I had the pleasure of touring my first commercial composting facility. It was awesome! The Harbor View facility was owned by Waste Management, today it is no longer operational.

 This facility sat atop an old landfill on Chicago’s south side and consists of windrow upon windrow of organic materials, slowly decomposing into nutrient rich compost.

Alex, my tour guide, looked at me funny when I showed up. I was about to take a tour of an outdoor facility which specializes in decomposing organic material and was dressed for a business meeting. It had rained many days beforehand and the earth was wet.

I showed up in pressed khakis, a tucked in button down, and black leather shoes on. Alex had overalls, a muddy sweatshirt, and work boots caked in pounds of fresh mud. I was clearly an underdressed fool.

We got into the truck and started our climb to the top of the old landfill. It was muddy and the tires slid and slopped as we ascended the mountain of trash. Our truck rounded the final bend and the ground leveled out in front of us.

The majority of the space was dedicated to windrows of decomposing material; there were a couple staging areas to accept food and yard waste separately, screen out undesirables, and mix nitrogen and carbon rich materials in the proper ratios.

If you look closely in the above photos you can see a pile that appears to be light green in color. I asked Alex if it was lye or some sort of soil amendment. “No, it’s money,” he replied. I didn’t understand at first.

Ever wonder what happens to paper money that is no longer fit for use? It has to go somewhere right? Well I found it. The Chicago Federal Reserve sends it shredded money to be composted. Over $3 million a week was sent up to this facility. Money is printed on a cotton fiber based paper and is totally compostable. Check out this fat stack of shredded cash.

Once the new material was sifted and the majority of the non-compostables were removed, Alex’s crew would move it into windrows. These windrows are designed to provide optimal conditions for the natural composting process to occur. The crew constantly monitors conditions within the windrows. They are turned over every month with a giant machine until the compost has reached its final form.

Once the compost is ready for sale, it is packaged and sold to the consumer market. Alex says they were selling the material for about $20/ton. Pretty cheap compared to worm castings and other compost I’ve seen.

I’m not sure why, but Waste Management has closed this facility. My best guess is that this facility was not profitable.

Waste Management still has a commercial composting facility in Romeoville, IL.

Have any questions about commercial composting or wondering how you can send your kitchen scraps to be composted, just ask in the comments below!