The $20 million Agromin Mountain View food waste recycling facility in Oxnard is the only one of its kind in Southern California and the largest in the state. It addresses the environmental impact of food waste, particularly from large local food processors.
"By creating this machine, we're allowed to take the food waste, fully contaminated, plastic bags, packaging, everything, and it decontaminates all the food wastes that people throw in the organics bins," said Agromin CEO Bill Camarillo. "It creates a food waste slurry that now gives us the ability to make animal feed, organic fertilizers, renewable natural gas, or we can compost out of it."
Camarillo continued: "This plant can serve all of Ventura County. We're getting food waste from Port Hueneme because those big boats come in with bananas, and not all the bananas are good, so then they're bringing them here, and we're processing them. A lot of the food waste (also) comes from jails, hospitals, schools, and restaurants. It comes packaged in plastic bags and cans. We see big gallon tomato cans, and the machine shreds them and pushes them out so that the only thing we get through the screens is food."
Agromin’s partners, EJ Harrison Industries, collect 30 tons of waste from Ventura County per day — and it's only one of the providers of waste here.
"There is a lot of food waste," explained Harrison's Donald Sealund. "We get roughly 30 tons a day, and there's still a lot more out there. I have five trucks going all day long every day and picking up all throughout Ventura County. The more that we can remove, the better off we are."
Sealund added that the waste would otherwise be sent to a landfill, which isn't good for the environment.
"When food waste goes to landfills, it creates methane," said Camarillo. "They don't capture it all, so it ends up in the atmosphere. And it's 80 times more potent than CO2, creating a greenhouse, which keeps the heat in."
The facility has been in development since 2017, in response to a California bill aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Democratic Assemblyman Steve Bennett of Oxnard authored the legislation.
"Each year, Californians unfortunately send 2.5 billion meals to landfills, and we're diverting as much of that as possible," said Bennett's Communications Director Michelle Sevilla.
The facility, which is contained within a warehouse with a roof, isn't the usual stinky landfill sites that are more familiar.
"Fortunately, food waste is very acidic, so it has a really low pH. So by itself, when you're processing it in a 24 or 48-hour period, it really has no odor," Camarillo explained. "We make sure we clean the machine every day, so there's nothing on the ground that could smell, nothing on the outside of the machines that can smell. And you can't see it, but it's all screened off."
This reporter didn't exactly have an odorless experience at the facility. Maybe it’s a bit like working in a chocolate shop, where you can’t smell it after a while.
The facility is projected to recycle up to 300 tons of food waste a day. Although Agromin’s CEO jokes that he’s turning trash into cash, until we stop wasting as much food, being able to use it for energy and compost is an innovative solution.
