Farmer culls treasure from industrial trash

How does this sound for an enticing recipe: Combine one part fish offal, two parts pulp and paper slash in a large concrete silo. Add in a dash of old hay and corn silage, along with just a pinch of egg shells. Mix until smooth and let sit for 12 to 18 months until it smells … well, just right.

Not an ideal side dish for that family reunion you’ll be going to this weekend? For Wes Kinney of Knox this is a recipe for success, but it’s not to be attempted by the casual chef or even the weekend gardener.

Working closely with David Ellis, project mangager for BFI Organics of Brewer, Kinney has discovered a way to convert industrial waste into a valuable soil amendment that has local gardeners and landscapers raving.

“Overall, BFI manages landfills and collects solid waste from residential and commercial accounts,” Ellis explained. “Most of that goes into landfills or is incinerated. But BFI Organics manages different residuals, mostly pulp and paper residuals, municipal residuals and other organic residuals for reuse.”

The bulk of the organic material is composted, applied to land, or has an industrial use. In northern New England, BFI helps to remove 240,000 tons of organic residuals, mostly from municipal waste treatment plants and pulp and paper mills, from the waste stream each year. The final product is used mostly by farms.

“Our biggest book of business is with farmers and land-application programs,” he said.

In the past year alone, Kinney has used 184 tons of seafood waste, 36 tons of poultry waste and 220 tons of short paper fibers from pulp and paper mills throughout the region. He has land-applied 963 tons of municipal solids on his hay and corn land.

“Our arrangement with Wes [Kinney] is a mutual one,” Ellis explained. “Wes is permitted with the DEP to take in Type 1 wastes and compost them. Type 1 wastes have no human pathogens and no municipal sludges. We are able to find him fish waste, poultry waste, and we’re looking into getting produce waste. There are problems with transportation we [have to solve first].”

“Transportation is the biggest cost in any type of waste disposal or waste utilization, so … the closer you can find the waste, the easier it is to make a price that people can afford,” according to Ellis.

Stinson Canning in Belfast and Avian Farms in Winslow currently are the largest providers of waste to the Kinney composting facility.

The formula for producing top-notch compost was not easy to come by. It took some experimenting, a few foul-smelling mistakes and a lot of research into the chemistry of a compost pile.

“We have a recipe that we go by,” Kinney explained. “Our current recipe is 25 percent fish, by volume, 50 percent sawdust and 25 percent other ingredients. Other ingredients could be any combination of corn silage, spoiled haylage, mulch hay, slash, this type of thing. And if we don’t get the right recipe, it doesn’t heat up as quickly as it should. It might be too moist or too dry, or the nitrogen-to-carbon ratio isn’t right.

“The trick is to try to get it so that it is pretty well broken down … in 60 days.”

When he first began large-scale composting, Kinney used a “passive system” where the waste was stacked in a pyramid-shaped pile and was allowed to decompose slowly. But that system was slow, inefficient and sometimes ill-smelling.

Now Kinney uses an “active system,” which is more labor intensive but results in a high-quality product in a shorter time frame.

“With the active system we actually go in with a bucket tractor and turn [the pile]. We can break it down much faster doing it this way. We have a much better handle on the odors. If you turn it every day, you can virtually wipe out all odors and all flies. The problem with that is economically it absolutely kills it. Instead of charging $15 a yard, I’d have to sell it for many times that if I had to have that much labor into it.”

Further mechanization is one way to circumvent the labor issue to some extent, according to Kinney.

“You can get around the labor if you use a window turner, but there’s a tradeoff with that, too,” he said. That equipment is expensive, and runs the risk of making the compost pile too dry with too many turnings. If it’s too dry, composting action ceases, which means water must be added. Another expense.

“We’re trying to get this from start to finish with about 12 to 14 turns over a period of 12 months. A great number of those comes within those early days. , when a load of fish comes in we have to turn it within 24 to 48 hours. Fish is very unforgiving. If I don’t turn it right away they’ll know about it all the way to Belfast,” Kinney said.

As the composting process happens, temperature, moisture and oxygen are monitored to make sure that activity is taking place at an appropriate rate.

The finished product has a pH around 6.4, according to Kinney, a level perfect for amending Maine soils. It is dark brown to black and has an earthy scent. The compost isn’t marked as a fertilizer because of its low nutritive value. It has an nitrogen-phosphorous value of 1-1-1. It is perfect, however, for promoting water retention is dry soils and for promoting drainage in wet soils.

People who use the green-cured product to landscape around their houses mix one-third compost, one-third sand and one-third loam, or half and half with loamy soil, he said. “But if you’re going to sell it to someone who runs a greenhouse, it should be cured between 12 and 18 months, because otherwise they’re dealing with … the possibility of burning seeds or plants.”

Large-scale composting may be intensive, but it might just prove to be one way Kinney can keep his agricultural land productive. Since selling his dairy herd of 300 in 1986, he has had to diversify into several areas of agriculture to keep his farm operation profitable. Sludge storage, housing other farmers’ livestock, hay and forage sales, and maple syrup production are all elements of his farm.

“In an area such as this, about the only industry we have is farming,” Kinney notes. “So much land is required to generate an income.”

Kinney’s farm will be the sight of the Waldo County Farm Bureau Fall Harvest Festival on Saturday. There will be composting demonstrations and a range of local agricultural producers showcasing their products. For more information on the composting operation, call Kinney at Knox Ridge Holstein Farm at 568-3683. For more information on the harvest festival, contact the Maine Farm Bureau at 1-800-639-2126.