The May 27th article “Mayor Wu Announces New Citywide Composting Program” by Boston Globe reporter Dharna Noor started out touting the Mayor’s Green New Deal, but ended up being yet another bash on biosolids as The Globe focused on concerns by the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) over where some of the food wastes may have to be diverted to.

The article failed to highlight the state’s ambitious goals for solid waste which includes major diversion of food and other organic wastes from landfill to composting and anaerobic digestion.  Most of Boston’s residential food wastes will be composted by two companies: Garbage to Garden (Portland, ME) and Save That Stuff (Boston/West Bridgewater).  The reporter focused on CLF’s misguided concerns about mixing food wastes with wastewater solids to generate biogas which the Greater Lawrence Sanitary District (GLSD) uses to power its water resource recovery facility (WRRF), completely off the electric grid. 

As reported by the Globe, “Some compost will also be sent to Waste Management’s Centralized Organic Recycling Facility in Charlestown, where it will be processed into a thick slurry and driven to the Greater Lawrence Sanitary District in North Andover to be processed in anaerobic digesters and turned into biogas which can be used for energy or heat. In a press release, the city said that this means some compost will be turned into “clean energy.”  That is where CLF took over the discussion.  Kristie Pesci called the anaerobic digestion by product “toxic”.  She pointed to a Sierra Club report, which has been rebutted (see https://casaweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Cover-Letter-to-Sierra-Club-010422.pdf), and incorrectly identified GLSD as the source of one of the products scrutinized by the Sierra Club.

In a letter to the editor of the Globe, NEBRA touted GLSD’s co-digestion program:

“Currently, North Andover-based GLSD is one of only a handful of anaerobic digestion facilities for wastewater solids in Massachusetts.  This wastewater treatment facility, a national model for innovation and self-sustainability, is completely off the grid thanks to energy produced by adding municipal and commercial food waste to its digesters.  GLSD is saving its communities money, generating a renewable fuel, and recycling nutrients and carbon back into the soils where they are badly needed.  GLSD and other Water Resource Recovery Facilities around the region are part of the climate change solution; they are not the problem.” 

“To date, GLSD has transformed almost 200,000 tons (46 million gallons) of food waste into renewable heat and energy,” said GLSD Executive Director Cheri Cousens.  She went on to tell NEBRAMail that “GLSD looks forward to the implementation of the lower threshold [food waste generated] of ½ ton per week starting in November of this year so we can work towards the Commonwealth’s updated waste diversion goal of 780,000 tons per year of food waste avoiding incineration and landfilling.”  

If Boston hopes to achieve its goals for diverting its food wastes from landfill, it will need as many outlets as possible.