City explores composting as recycling option

RANDOLPH – The next evolution of Randolph’s cardboard recycling may include composting.

That’s an option being explored by Randolph’s city administrator Ben Benton.

He’s currently writing a grant to the Nebraska Recycling Council to fund composting bays and a cardboard shredder. If funded, composting could begin as early as this spring. “According to some people, anything can be composted,” Benton said, adding that he has experience with composting poultry litter with wood shavings while farming in northeast Oklahoma. “We turned something that smelled terrible and turned it into something that smells like dirt. It was a very cool process. I’m hoping to use some of those processes here in Randolph with respect to cardboard.”

Greenfiber, based in Norfolk, stopped picking up recyclable cardboard from Randolph and other area communities last year, which effectively rerouted it to the landfill. The city has been looking for cardboard recycling solutions ever since.

Benton plans to shred the readily available cardboard and add in food waste from Randolph Public Schools and other local entities and grass clippings, and other garden waste already taken at Randolph’s Recycling Center. The other key compost ingredients - water and air - will be taken care of at the newly constructed compost bays.

In the grant application, Benton is outlining plans to build three bays using recycled “plastic” lumber large enough for an employee to safely use a skid-steer loader to aerate compost piles. The location of the bays has yet to be determined.

The Randolph City Council has allotted $25,000 in its annual budget for recycling efforts which would be used as a match for any grant funds received for the project.

Benton estimates about one hour of employee time each week to do any work necessary for composting.

It may take about 90 days before the separate ingredients are turned into a usable compost product, Benton said.

The compost material can then be used on resident’s yards and gardens or out in farmers’ fields.

“We would be giving it or selling it so that we break even,” Benton said. “We don’t want to create a deficit or cost.”

Benton has looked into other options for cardboard recyling including working with Siouxland Recycling, based in Sioux City, Iowa. Unfortunately, that recycling company requires cardboard to be baled, which requires the purchase of equipment as well as a place to store it, and additional employee time. The company provides a trailer for storage but requires a loading dock - another hurdle the city would need to figure out, Benton said.

If Randolph is able to start a municipal composting process, the city would be the first one in the area to do so.

Benton said once a composting system is in place, the city may need to expand to a windrow composting system instead of bays.

“It would be a matter of keeping up with demand,” he said. “In talking with others with composting operations, as soon as the stuff is made, it’s being used or shipped out of state.”