Glean Organics is open…
The path from idea to operational has been long and gradual. Things have progressed so fluidly that we didn’t really have a point where Glean didn’t exist one moment and did exist the next. I suppose that, at the end of the day, the goal was to divert food waste from the landfill using in-vessel composting and worms. That goal’s been reached.
This week we took the final step necessary to claim “Glean’s up and running” by introducing worms to the pilot facility. It’s exciting; for the first time we can run our composting process start-to-finish.
The We
Glean Organics is my pet project, but I always say we because it’s not just my countless hours that have gone into this project. From logistics, marketing, branding, and research to building out the pilot site, everyone at Brothers Lane has been instrumental.
Pilot Facility
Sounds cool, doesn’t it? One of our main design criteria was low barrier to entry, which means we do a lot of work by hand. Large composting facilities require millions of dollars to build – but not a Glean facility. The pilot site is the shorter end of the shoestring. By scrounging up parts and making do, I’ve only put a few hundred dollars in (mostly for the worms). Still, this has been invaluable because (1) we are up and running, not just talking about it, and (2) we can experiment, prove out new ideas, and evolve the operational model.
Oregon City Pilot Facility
(From back to front)
A small workbench, mainly to hold up the monitoring computer. This continuously measures the compost’s temperature so that each batch has an associated thermal profile (required for a regulation known as PFRP). It also alerts us if something’s going wrong so we can take corrective action. I borrowed incident management from the other side of our business (ask me about integrating JIRA with a toaster).
Wrapped in insulating blankets is the digester in which food waste is composted. A fan – in this case a shop-vac – allows us to force fresh air into the compost substrate. After 5-10days this has finished the primary stage of composting and cools down. We call this digested compost because it’s not yet cured and wouldn’t be a finished compost product for another three to 12 months.
Gray bin is the overflow waiting for a turn in the digester. I mixed up too much stuff to compost
The worm rack is next. Worms need surface area and since we have very little we have to go vertical. Ultimately we will need much higher densities but this is good for proving it out.
The teal bin is where I keep the worm food. This is the digested compost from the in-vessel composter which is used to feed the worms.
There are some other bits and pieces in there, but that’s the important stuff.
Our novelty is that Glean operates in urban areas to allow anyone to compost. A major drawback to large compost facilities is that neighborhoods and restaurants don’t produce enough food waste to be economically viable (have you seen the price of gas lately?). Large facilities located far outside of town have to go after the low-hanging fruit, but we can get up into the canopy ;-). Because we operate in high density areas, we have to make the most of our space. The pilot site is organized to mimic a half-size shipping container to see just how much throughput we can muster. We’ll keep you posted on our progress and announce new projects once we can call them official.
We are very proud of the work you do. Keep up the good work.
aw shucks. thanks.
Very interesting. I’d like to have something like this one day….Hopefully sooner than later…
Do it! Only 2-3% of food waste is diverted from landfills, about 15% of the solid waste stream is food waste (millions of tons of landfilled food annually). We’d love to help you get setup, provide advice, wade through regulatory tape…we need lots more composters out there. Thanks for the kind words.
I’m looking at your site and i love your concept. One thing i am unclear about is your final product? Are you selling compost, or are you selling the concept of small site affordable composting facilities that others can build?
If you’re selling compost, where is it available and what is it called, cost, etc.?
At our core the only real goal is to divert food waste from landfills as efficiently as possible (that means getting edible food to people and animals and composting the rest using as little energy as possible). In today’s world that means we need to make enough money to sustainably grow the business and divert more food waste. As the model develops we are adding more and more products and services to achieve our ends. We prefer to operate at the waste producing source where composting isn’t currently viable such as residential neighborhoods or restaurants. By producing and selling in urban areas we save a ton of fuel.
At the moment our pilot facility is running strong and we’re just about to harvest our first worm castings. This facility serves as a testing ground to refine and improve the technologies we use. We are working with a number of clients to bring composting into their business too. We do this in three different ways today (1) turnkey operation, we consult on a site’s design and help setup a composting operation, (2) co-op, we partner with a business like a grocery store, and operate the composting facility on their property, (3) traditional, we haul food waste to our composting facility which to a business is indistinguishable from standard waste management.
In the turnkey case the product we sell is a composting facility, in the other cases we create a variety of soil amendments and gardening products to support the operation. On our scale the waste handling doesn’t produce much revenue. We are working towards our first sale-able products now so stay tuned!