Baltimore Receives $4 Million EPA Grant, New Opportunities for Organic Waste Management

Editor's note: See our previous coveragefor more on Baltimore's 10-year solid waste plan.

The City of BaltimoreDraft Solid Waste Management Planincludes ambitious ideas for organic waste collection and sorting. Now, a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could help fuel change in the city.

The grant, announced earlier this month, will provide Baltimore with $4 million to build a composting facility at the existing Bowleys Lane transfer station. According to an EPA fact sheet, the facility will be solar-powered and will divert 12,000 tons of organic waste from landfills annually.

Sophia Hussain, zero waste manager for the Department of Public Works, said using solar power helps achieve the city's goal of moving away from "waste-to-energy," an effort to reduce the amount of waste sent to WIN Waste Innovations' Baltimore incinerator. Meanwhile, with the city's landfill expected to reach capacity by 2035, the city is also looking for long-term waste disposal solutions.

Hussain praised the EPA grant but acknowledged that more work is needed to transform the city's organic waste management.

"We see this funding as an important first step in the right direction, but clearly we need more local composting capacity to support our organic waste diversion goals," Hussain said.

In 2018, the city set goals through the Baltimore Food Waste and Recovery Strategy: to reduce resident food waste by 80% by 2040 and ensure all residents have access to organic waste collection services. Meanwhile, a 2021 Maryland law requires large food waste generators within 30 miles of an organics recycling facility to begin diverting organic waste from the waste stream.

However, despite these goals, the authors of Maryland's draft solid waste plan (expected to be approved later this year) note that currently "the city has no easy way to identify the food waste generators targeted by state law." Complicating matters, the city has neither a centralized organic waste collection program nor a large-scale facility to process such waste.

Marvin Hayes, head of the Baltimore Compost Collective, has been working to address these challenges for years. Hayes' organization composts at a small facility in the city and collects food waste from residents, but due to a lack of sufficient capacity within the city, he often has to haul excess waste to a secondary composting site in Prince George's County.

Hayes said he provided feedback on the city's EPA grant application and called the grant a "tremendous opportunity" for the city. After years of advocacy, he believes the facility could bring more opportunities and represents a step forward on the city's path toward a circular waste system.

"Baltimore taking this big step, even if it's just a mid-sized facility, has me excited right now," Hayes said. "I don't think this is a period. It's a comma. We can go further."

The state of organic waste diversion

The city still has significant room for improvement in food and yard waste diversion — an estimated 3.5% of organic waste was diverted in 2021, despite accounting for 21% of the waste stream. Diverted organic waste is primarily collected by nonprofits, community composters, and small haulers.

The lack of a centralized organic waste program has led some nonprofits to fill the gap. One such nonprofit, 4MyCity, has gained attention for its food rescue efforts and organic waste processing, and has received support from waste-to-energy operator WIN Waste. Founder Christopher Dipnarine said his four-year-old organization now serves more than 4,000 residents registered for food rescue services.

Dipnarine has supported the city's grant applications in the past, but he is skeptical of the city's efforts to build composting capacity. He noted that the draft is not Baltimore's first time setting high goals for organic waste diversion policy.

"This isn't their first attempt," Dipnarine said, noting that 4MyCity has expanded without city support. "Who's to say they'll succeed this time?"

4MyCity has enrolled households served by its food rescue program in a plan to collect their food waste and provide it to farm composters or process it using the nonprofit's proprietary aerobic digestion technology. But Dipnarine said 4MyCity's organic waste processing work accounts for about "30%" of its day-to-day operations.

"The core philosophy is getting food to the community, thereby reducing food waste at the source," Dipnarine said.

To date, this echoes the city's own organic waste priorities. Since 2016, Baltimore has been conducting food waste reduction campaigns, culminating in two documents released in 2018: the Baltimore Food Waste and Recovery Strategy from the Office of Sustainability, and Less Waste, Better Baltimore from the Department of Public Works. The former focuses specifically on food waste, while the latter covers broader strategies for improving solid waste and recycling.

The early strategy set ambitious organics recycling goals — in addition to striving for an 80% reduction in food waste, it set a target of reducing commercial food waste by 50%, diverting more than 85,000 tons of organic waste annually. But the Less Waste, Better Baltimore plan, developed by consulting firm Geosyntec, noted that without outside help, the city's capabilities were "somewhat limited," and to date, the city's efforts have focused primarily on promoting food recovery and educational outreach.

This year's draft still sets a timeline for launching a more ambitious, comprehensive city-supported organics collection network, and supports policies that would create demand for such infrastructure. The draft supports banning the commercial landfilling of organic waste in the city, as well as a comprehensive ban on landfilling organic materials.

According to the draft, Baltimore currently operates five food scrap drop-off sites and plans to open five more this year. Between 2024 and 2028, it plans to pilot source-separated organics collection at public schools and government offices. Between 2029 and 2033, the city will expand source-separated organics collection for residents by establishing a three-bin pilot program.

Hayes, who founded the Baltimore Compost Collective in 2017, said he diverts 1,500 pounds of organic waste weekly, directly collects residents' organic trash, and relies partly on volunteer labor. He said he is nearing capacity and that his operations could expand further with city support. If the city sticks to its goal of rolling out source-separated organics collection to all residents by 2033, he believes he can play a larger role in the circular ecosystem.

"If the city supports us, we can do curbside compost collection, we can donate, reuse, recycle some garbage trucks and use them for organic material collection," Hayes said. "My goal is: to be a hauler for those businesses that have to divert organic materials."

Hayes not only supports the city's plans to build more infrastructure, but he also believes education is crucial for teaching residents how to compost and why it benefits them. Hayes has worked with the city's Food Matters program, which primarily provides educational training to the public and organizations to participate in organic waste diversion, including supporting a network of community composting sites. The program launched in 2018 with support from the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Hayes continues to participate in educational training offered by the Department of Public Works at its GROW Center. He hopes the city will also consider sponsoring youth training programs in the future to provide jobs and a talent pipeline for the circular organic economy.

"Years ago, we didn't think we could stop people from smoking indoors. But what did we do? We ran awareness campaigns," Hayes said. "Composting isn't accessible to everyone. So we need to educate them."

Organic waste processing facility plans

Baltimore's draft also plans for additional processing capacity for all the source-separated organics it expects to collect.

These plans begin with a small composting training facility with a weekly processing capacity of 3 tons. The facility is expected to open by 2028, with construction costs of approximately $350,000. The Bureau of Solid Waste envisions training composting professionals at the facility to support existing community composting efforts.

During the planning period, the bureau also anticipates building at least one (possibly more) covered aerated static pile composting facility capable of processing 20,000 tons of feedstock annually, at a cost of $3.5 million each. The plan favors developing such facilities through public-private partnerships, with the city providing land leases and some waste supply guarantees, while third parties handle construction and operation. The bureau estimates the first such facility could be operational by 2028.

Brenda Platt, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, praised the plan for its decentralized, incremental composting approach, contrasting it with cities like New York that increasingly rely on wastewater treatment plant co-digestion or large industrial facilities to process waste.

"Building some mid-sized facilities within the city, complementing the activities of community composting, schools, urban farms, and community gardens, could be very effective," Platt said. "The city has a tremendous opportunity to support a community-driven, committed process."

According to the Baltimore Sun, construction of the Bowleys Lane composting facility may not begin until 2025. Meanwhile, Baltimore has also applied for an EPA Recycling Education and Outreach grant to fund its composting training facility. A Department of Public Works spokesperson said the city plans to build the facility at the Quarantine Road landfill, which is already slated for expansion.

Platt supports building new composting facilities, but she believes the greatest benefit of Baltimore's plan may lie in establishing infrastructure that allows a network of community composting sites to thrive.

"The plan looks very strong in supporting local composting efforts," Platt said. "We have been strong supporters and would be very happy to work with the Department of Public Works to advance composting in the city and address Baltimore's unique challenges."