Economic Benefits of Composting

Our composting facilities bring $millions into the community.

The many economic benefits of composting can be divided into:

1. Economic Benefits to the community where the composting facility is located;
2. Economic Benefits to the generators of organic residuals;
3. Economic Benefits to those using the finished compost to amend soils
4. Economic Benefits to Society

Economic Benefits to the community where the composting facility is located

1. Each of our facilities takes a team of 15 - 20 people to staff.   That translates to over $1 million in annual payroll.   Experience has taught us that providing significant profit sharing for the people who work together to make the facility operate efficiently is good business.
2. The facility brings $ millions into the community from outside the community. 
3. Having a local source for premium finished compost cuts trucking cost for those using the material locally, saving money.
4. Real Estate tax revenue, lowering the tax burden on the local residents.

Economic Benefits to the generators of organic residuals:

Restaurants and other generators of organic residuals benefit from lower tipping fees compared to the cost of disposal at incinerators and landfills.

Economic Benefits to those using the finished compost to amend soils:

1. Plant health depends upon soil health.  Most of our soils are in very poor condition.  The most economical, and maybe the only way, to build soil health is by adding quality, mature, compost.  Compost adds both organic matter and a diverse array of soil microbes which are essential to soil health.   See the Soil Food Web and Soil Quality pages.
2. Soils revitalized with quality compost promote healthier plants, reducing or eliminating the need for chemical fertilizers and toxic chemical pesticides.
3. Compost and soils ammended with generous amounts of compost are easier to work, and thus less costly to work.
4. For both landscapers and homeowners, compost ammended soils mean healthier plants greatly reducing or eliminating the need to replace plants that would fail to thrive in native soil that was not improved by the addition quality compost.

Economic Benefits to Society:

1. Even the best incinerators release Dioxin into our atmosphere.   Dioxin is the deadliest compound known to man, causing all sorts of health problems, including cancers and immune system suppression.  The economic cost of the health problems would be hard, at best, to even estimate.  Composting diverts thousands of tons of organics from area incinerators.  At the same time, the tipping fees at our composting facilites are 20 - 25% lower than the tipping fees at the area incinerators, a very substantial savings.
2. Compost ammended soils have a much healthier soil food web, including the microbes that facilitate natural cycling of nutrients needed by the plants, without adding chemical fertilizers.  Also, a healthy soil foodweb enables binding up Nitrogen and other nutrients in microbial biomass so they don't leach out into the drinking water where then tax payer dollars would have to be spent to remove the Nitrogen from the drinking water.   In the soil with the healthy soil food web nutrients are bound up in microbial biomass and the PLANT controls the conversion of the nutrients into plant available forms. 
3. The microbes in compost ammended soils have an amazing ability to break down pollutants, including petroleum compounds as well as many others.  This is very economical environmental management.