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The Bedminster
Solution It was in 1997 that Bedminster
signed a 25-year contract with the Town of
Nantucket. As part of the contract,
Bedminster would operate the Town's landfill,
operate its constructed Materials Recycling
Facility (MRF), and build a state-of-the-art
co-composting facility at their Madaket
site.
In the two years that followed, Bedminster
has cleaned up the landfill, restored eight
acres of wetlands, shipped eight barge loads
of tires off island, reduced the population
of seagulls at the landfill from 25,000 to
just several hundred, and increased
Nantucket's recycling rate from 17 percent to
42 percent, ranking it as the community in
Massachusetts with the highest rate of
recycling. Since the composter began
operation in December 1999, that rate has
jumped to close to 90%.
The principle behind Bedminster' style of
composting is as brilliant as it is simple.
All organic matter, over time, decomposes and
becomes soil humus. The problem is that, in
nature, this decomposition process takes
scores, if not hundreds, of years. Thus,
while metals, glass and other recyclables can
be easily removed from a waste stream and
reused, organic matter often sits in
landfills, and as it breaks down it releases
gases and leachate that escape into the
environment. Since up to 70 percent of the
average American city's waste stream is
organic, landfills often become environmental
crises.
A composting digester is an environment full
of microbes. As trash and sewage sludge are
fed inside, the cylinder rotates, exposing
the waste to more and more microbes, which
actually accelerates the decomposition
process. The household waste and sludge that
enter one end of the digester, emerge at the
other as compost after only a few days.
Optimal conditions for decomposition are
created in the digester, a situation that in
nature rarely occurs.The benefits are
obvious. By removing the need to bury organic
waste, a town gets a cleaner, longer-lasting
and smaller landfill. And in Nantucket's
case, a composter, when added to the existing
program of recycling glass, metal, paper,
construction and demolition waste, and tires,
will result in a community-wide recycling
rate that is projected to approach 90
percent.
What Bedminster has built on Nantucket is a
system that will meet the specific needs of
the island, a system equal to the task of
protecting a place and a natural environment
that countless people cherish. The vision of
the Town government in deferring to the
private sector is to be applauded.
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