A growing mountain of food waste from Twin Cities businesses and households is straining the capacity of local compost sites — a new problem for an industry that has boomed almost overnight.
The amount of compost-bound waste in the metro has doubled in just three years, state data show, as grocery stores, restaurants and thousands of residents sort more food out of the trash. Nearly all of it heads to two facilities, in Rosemount and Shakopee, which combine it with other organic matter to create nutrient-rich compost.
Those sites are running low on space to store and manage the material as it decomposes. Expanding them isn't easy. Composting sites generally need special permits, costly protective pads, water treatment ponds and distance from nearby neighbors.
The space crunch poses a quandary for regulators hoping to divert more of the metro area's food scraps from landfills and incinerators. Hennepin County commissioners recently voted to require many cities and businesses to recycle food waste in the coming years, but a lead staffer says there may not be a viable location in the county for a new compost facility.
The county had to scramble to find a place to unload food waste from its Brooklyn Park transfer station after Full Circle Organics, another metro-area composting site, closed in Becker in late 2016. After the state denied its request to burn or bury waste that could not be composted, Rosemount and Shakopee agreed to take more material.
"There's an awful lot of policy out there, and the capacity has to catch up to it," said Kevin Nordby, a co-owner of Specialized Environmental Technologies (SET), which operates the Rosemount facility.
SET is doubling its space for food waste after state regulators loosened rules on where it could be stored. But it won't last long.
"That capacity is basically going to be full as soon as I finish the construction," Nordby said, adding that he expects to request permission for more permitted space from the state.