Sustainability Goals - DOC's Composting Program

The Department of Corrections has “gone green” with a sustainability program that includes composting projects at five DOC prison facilities.  These programs not only reduce costs but also lighten the load on landfills and the environment.

It is estimated Americans throw away more than four pounds of waste every day.  About a pound - or 25 percent - is food and yard waste.  When deposited in a landfill, organic waste consumes space and creates hazardous methane gas and leachate (“garbage juice”).  Organic wastes will not biodegrade in the oxygen-deprived atmosphere of a landfill. However, when composted, food and yard waste create a wonderful soil amendment. Compost is nature’s way of recycling food and plant waste back to soil for new plants.

Cedar Creek Corrections Center (CCCC)

CCCC Composts food waste using low-tech, low-cost and highly inventive methods.  Each month, a ton of food waste is composted using worm bins.  Shredded paper and wood chips provide the bedding and bulking material. The compost bins and rotating compost screen were made by offenders using available materials.  Originally, the worms were housed on the floor of an out building, in a long windrow supported with sandbags made from old pants legs. To maximize space, they now live in custom designed vertical compost systems. To discourage vermin and keep the worms happy, CCCC does not compost meat, dairy or citrus scraps, which limits the amount of food waste the facility is able to compost.  Even so, composting has reduced CCCC’s garbage by one-fourth, with more reductions planned. Compost is used on Cedar Creek’s many gardens or bagged as “Con-post” and distributed free to the local community.

Larch Corrections Center (LCC)

LCC uses a different approach -- a Wright Environmental in-vessel compost system. Unlike the worm-compost system at CCCC, this totally contained system takes all food waste, allowing for significantly more waste diversion, even though the facilities are the same size.  Food waste and a bulking agent (chipped wood waste from local Department of Natural Resources lands) are mechanically dumped in the top of the machine. Just 14 days later, compost comes out the other end. The machine does all the turning and aerating. Any liquid runoff is collected, contained and re-injected into the mix.  The compost is cured for a few more weeks after it leaves the composting vessel, and then is screened and used on the grounds. Larch has seen its gardens grow, and its garbage bill shrink by 70 percent since composting began. In Fiscal Year 2006, 40 tons of food waste were composted.

Washington State Penitentiary (WSP)

WSP disposes of roughly two tons of food waste a day.   In 2003, Correctional Industries, the City of Walla Walla and Walla Walla County teamed up to create a regional composting facility, with grant funding from the Department of Ecology.  Food waste from the Penitentiary is composted along with yard waste from the community.  Most of it is composted in one of four Engineered Compost System in-vessel bins on site, using chipped yard waste as a bulking agent. Additional yard and food waste is also composted in aerated piles. In Fiscal Year 2006, the Penitentiary composted 800 tons of food waste, providing jobs for offenders and a salable end-product.

Olympic Corrections Center (OCC)

OCC has a covered aerated pile compost system, where both food waste and bio-solids are composted. This system has plenty of capacity, so food waste from Clallam Bay Corrections Center is also transported to Olympic Corrections Center.  No special trips are needed for transport. Food waste is placed in 90 gallon totes and hauled on a trailer behind the van that transports daily inmate work crews between the two facilities.  Food waste is stored in the totes until it is ready to be mixed with available biosolids and bulking agent. Shredded paper and wood chips are used as bulking agents.  The mixed material is then spread on top of one of 13 aerated ports and nature takes over. Combined, Olympic and Clallam Bay Corrections Centers compost 300 tons of food waste and biosolids per year.

Stafford Creek Corrections Center (SCCC)

SCCC was just given a long-term loan of a commercial sized worm bin from the Department of Ecology. While the bin is not large enough to compost all the food waste from the facility, the plan is to start composting limited food waste, with the hope that success will encourage increased composting capacity.

Not all DOC composting happens at the correctional centers. In February, DOC headquarters began collecting food waste in its four lunchrooms.  This material is hauled, via work crews, to Cedar Creek Corrections Center for composting.

Composting is one of the main ways DOC has been successful in reducing waste – 15 percent from fiscal year 2004 to 2006.

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