Client Needs

Seven Ottawa Valley municipal jurisdictions (serving over 40,000 residents) needed a composting facility to complement their Waste Recovery Centre. It required:

• In-vessel technology;
• Complete odor control;
• Efficient design;
• and able to produce a marketable compost product from 4500 metric tons of residential organics per year.

ECS Solution

Waste Conversion Inc., ECS’s representative in Eastern Canada, designed a compost facility featuring 11 in-vessel containers. The ECS vessels have a custom exterior cladding (to match the facility), additional insulation and an enclosed and insulated aeration hallway for composting in extremely cold conditions.

Source separated organics are unloaded on a tipping floor, bucket-loaded into a coarse shredder, then passed down a negative sorting line and a magnetic separator. The organic product is collected in a bunker and transferred by a front-end loader to a heavy-duty mixer. The mixer blends the organics with wood chips, sawdust and water to achieve the desired mix characteristics.

An empty compost vessel is placed next to the mixer and loaded with an indexing conveyor. The full vessels are transported via roll-off truck to an outdoor concrete pad and connected to the ECS Aeration and Control System. The aeration and control system automatically regulates aeration, produces a record of regulatory compliance and minimizes electrical power consumption. Potential odors from the receiving building and the composting process are directed through a site-built biofilter.

Regulatory requirements for pathogen reduction are met in the vessels. Roll-off trucks unload the compost at a curing area where it stabilizes and matures.