What started out as a landfill in 1942 has successfully evolved into an organic waste processing facility in San Leandro, CA. The phase 1 project achieved the LEED Gold Certification making it only the third facility at the time to rise to that status. Currently the site can process over 150,000 tons of compostable food waste and yard trimmings while more is sent to third-party composting and biofuel facilities. It also houses the office space for the management team on site.

Phase 1 required a 34,000-sf organic waste transfer and processing facility and included the following features and improvements:

– Natural day-lighting from solar tubes and translucent panels

– Extra odor elimination from a state-of-the-art bio-filter
and high-speed roll up doors which also helps mitigate
air quality outside the facility

– Improved traffic flow and storage of the existing site

– 100% recycled aggregate built walls for the stabilized embankment*

– 95% of the construction waste was recyclable*

– 40% of the building materials were locally sourced*

– 20% of the building materials were from recycled sources*

Davis Street announced a $10 million Phase 2 that will include a 70,000-sf Material Recovery Facility (MRF) to process food waste for green waste and bio-conversion feed stock. It’s projecting that less than 10% of remaining waste will be recyclable materials after the project is complete.

Major features in the new MRF:

 – Double the current volume of 1.6 million pounds of materials per day

 – Vacuum system which is designed to help separate plastic films

 – Magnets which recover ferrous metals

 – Vibratory screens that will separate out small stones/rocks and wood to be reused for building or construction materials

 – Air separators that can filter out small paper products

 – Optical sorting through technology that can separate wood and aluminum

After everything is separated, it can be reused for construction like concrete, sent for recycling, and even turned into mulch for gardening. If organic waste processing sounds like a goal for you contact us; we can help you achieve a greener processing system.

*Cited from the facility owner’s press release.