Mixing up Magic: Compost and Compost Blends at the SMSC Organics Recycling Facility

October 1, 2018
SMSC Organics Recycling Facility Blog

The SMSC Organics Recycling Facility offers many products to help you create a beautiful, healthy-looking lawn and garden—no matter the time of year. The facility is open to the public Monday-Friday from 7am-5pm and on Saturdays from 8am-4pm. Come visit us anytime to pick up must-have products for your next project! The SMSC Organics Recycling Facility not only creates compost, but we also specialize in a variety of compost blends. Each blend has been carefully formulated for specific applications. Below we’ll highlight some of our best-selling products and the appropriate applications for them. Compost The first product we’ll talk about is compost, which is the base for all of our blends. We create compost on-site with the turned windrow composting method. From start to finish, creating compost at the SMSC Organics Recycling Facility generally takes 4-6 months. The finished product is screened to 1/2” fraction and is a great addition to many gardening projects. Compost is a soil amendment that is added to existing soils and treated like a natural fertilizer. Compost is not a soil itself and needs to be mixed in with existing soil. Some good uses for compost would include adding compost to an existing vegetable or…
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What the Heck is That? An Introduction to Composting Equipment

September 4, 2018
Caterpillar 950M Front End Loader

A large-scale composting operation, such as the one run by the SMSC Organics Recycling Facility, wouldn’t be possible without many different pieces of specialized equipment. Heavy machinery is used every day to move, grind, mix, turn, and screen the compost. We’d like to highlight a few of the machines that make our operation possible. Arguably the most important piece of equipment we have on-site is our Caterpillar 950M Front End Loader. We currently have four loaders on-site that are almost constantly in use. Front end loaders are essential for moving material in every step of the composting process—they load material into grinders and screeners, build and move windrows, and load customers with product for sale.   The first machine we use to get the composting process started is the Komptech Crambo 5000. The Crambo is a slow-speed machine that grinds all incoming food waste and yard waste. Once material arrives at our facility, it is scooped up by an operator and dumped into the top of the Crambo. The inside of this machine has sharp teeth on two rotating drums that turn at approximately 40 rpm (compared with other machines that turn at 800 rpm). Having a slow-speed grinder is…
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Composting 101: Nature’s Version of Recycling

July 15, 2018

The SMSC Organics Recycling Facility is one of the largest composting operations in the state of Minnesota. Many nearby communities, grocery stores, restaurants, and school districts sustainably dispose of their organic waste at our facility. We take what might have been tossed in a landfill and instead create high-quality compost, compost blends, and mulch. Many of us have used compost in our gardens and yards, but have you ever wondered about the science behind what compost actually is and how it’s made? Today, we’d like to share with you a little bit of information about how the composting process happens, and how the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC) is able to take waste material and recycle it into a valuable product. Let’s start by defining what compost is. Compost is organic material that decomposes into a rich soil amendment. Anything organic can be put into a compost pile to decompose. This includes items like fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, fur, hair, bones, paper, napkins, leaves, grass, and brush, to name just a few examples. If it was once living, it’s compostable. In order to become compost, these items must be mixed together according to a specific “compost recipe.” A compost recipe…
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