Compost’s New Home in Williston

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Construction is well under way at our new facility on Redmond Road in Williston. We’re very excited about the changes and seeing the progress as excavators and forms turn into concrete walls and the outlines of a building. We expect the new facility to be up and running in early July, just in time to coincide with our shutdown at the Intervale in Burlington.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crews have nearly finished pouring concrete walls and have begun on the floors of our main compost building. Steel roofing members have arrived and will be installed shortly. This building will house our initial feedstock receiving area, mixing areas, and the first phase of our aerated compost process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The steel roof will allow us to operate free of rain or snow for the first 3-4 weeks of the composting process. In addition to allowing much more control over the composting process, we believe our new facility will allow us to create a much drier finished product.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These giant walls will eventually contain the mountain of leaf and yard debris we accept from homeowners all over Chittenden County before mixing them with manure and foodscraps as the first step in making compost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aeration channels have been engineered into the concrete floors of our main building. These will allow us to use fans to move air through the fresh compost piles in either a positive (blowing air) or negative (sucking air) direction. The use of electric fans for aeration of the piles is one of the big advancements of the new location. Previously, we’ve relied on heavy equipment to aerate all of our piles which is both inefficient and resource intensive.

Another benefit of the new site is our elevation — we’ll be much higher off the Winooski River, making us less susceptible to the frequent flooding we experience at the Intervale. In addition to making it easier for us to operate, we expect that the drop-off experience for our customers will be more pleasant following our move out of the mud!

 

Stay tuned for more updates; we hope you’ll come visit our new site once we’re settled in this fall.