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Turned Windrow Composting Sizing Your Composting Pad

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Turned Windrow Composting Sizing Your Composting Pad Turned Windrow Composting Sizing Your Composting Pad Planning a windrow composting operation is a multistep process, which involves careful thought and consid- 5. Calculating the Number of Windrows on the eration. The following guide has been created as part Active Pad of a set of resources to help composters in Vermont 6. Determining Active Pad Work Space Needs effectively plan, develop, and manage local composting 7. Calculating Active Pad Footprint operations. The focus of this resource is to support you 8. Calculating Curing and Storage Area in determining the size of your windrow composting site. 9. Calculating Feedstock Storage Operations composting food scraps (source-separated 10. Calculating Receiving and Blending Area organics or SSO) in Vermont are the main focus of this 11. Additional Infrastructure to Consider guide, although most of the guide will apply to com- 12. Calculating Total Site Footprint posters of farm wastes and other materials as well. Each phase is explained along with the necessary cal- The guide will walk you through the following calcula- culations and an example. Cumulatively, these steps tions and considerations: will help you determine the total footprint required for your windrow composting activities. You will likely need 1. Gathering Basic Information for Sizing a Windrow to adjust the dimensions of specific features within the Composting Facility site, based on realities of the plot you are dealing with. If 2. Two Approaches to Identifying Target Scale you are familiar with using spreadsheet software such as 3. Determining Total Volume of Feedstock on Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, these tools can Active Composting Pad be very helpful in setting up a template calcula- 4. Calculating Windrow Volume and tor, which will automatically make calculations Dimensions based on the assumptions you input. In addition, Sizing Your Composting Pad 1 you may find it helpful to draw your design concept as you work, particularly if you already have a site in mind, Notes on applicability of this guide: but also just to help you to visualize the spatial relation- a) The math in this guide is specific to designing rectangular ships represented by the calculations. Working with a sites; additional steps will be required to assess the processing conceptual site layout as you go through the steps and capacity of non-rectangular locations calculations can ultimately make for a stronger and more efficient design process. b) The math in this guide is specific to sizing the compost management, curing, and storage areas of turned wind- row composting operations; does not address the sizing of infrastructure for other composting methods or of storm or Table of Contents wastewater management systems. Gathering Basic Information for Sizing a Windrow Composting Facility ........................................... 3 Two Approaches to Identifying Target Scale ............................................................................................. 5 1. Primary Feedstock Approach ..............................................................................................................................5 2. Target Output Approach .......................................................................................................................................6 Companion Determining Total Volume of Feedstock on Active Composting Pad ................................................ 7 Resource: Calculating Windrow Volume and Dimensions ........................................................................................ 7 Calculating Number of Windrows on the Active Pad .............................................................................. 8 Turned Windrow Determining Active Pad Workspace Needs ................................................................................................ 8 Composting: Site Identification Calculating Active Pad Footprint .................................................................................................................. 9 & Design Calculating Curing and Storage Area .......................................................................................................... 10 Considerations Calculating Feedstocks Storage .................................................................................................................... 12 Calculating Receiving and Blending Area .................................................................................................. 13 Additional Infrastructure to Consider .......................................................................................................... 14 Calculating Total Site Footprint .................................................................................................................... 14 References .......................................................................................................................................................... 16 By far the most common technique for composting beyond home scale is the turned windrow meth- od. A windrow is an elongated pile, which is generally turned or “rolled” from the side with a bucket loader, tractor, or a specially engineered machine called a windrow turner. Windrows can also be turned by hand by volunteers in human powered operations. The long shape of a windrow makes the piles easy to turn and provides surface area for passive airflow into the compost. Windrows also provide a sim- ple means to organize a compost site, by combining and tracking materials of a similar age in a scalable volume. From Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting Sizing Your Composting Pad 2 in Vermont, most collection routes service customers at PHASE ONE least once per week, so weeks are a logical period of time Gathering Basic Information for to use in your calculations. Sizing a Windrow Composting Question 4 Facility What equipment will you use to turn compost at the facility? Planning the scale of windrow composting infrastruc- Compost windrow dimensions will in part be determined ture is a relatively simple process that uses math to think by your equipment’s capacity to build and turn that through how a specific volume of material will move windrow. For example, a tractor may be able to stack through your facility in space and time. There are a few and turn a pile that’s 6 feet tall, which is a good starting initial questions that need to be answered in order to start height for a windrow. Pile geometry would dictate that a sizing your facility. 6 foot windrow would have a 12-14 foot wide base. These dimensions will be used to calculate the volume of a Question 1 windrow on the site. What is the “problem” or “primary” feedstock you will be composting? Question 5 How long will the active and curing phases of com- The first step is identifying the “problem” or “primary” posting take at your operation? material that will be composted. In this guide we focus on food scraps as the “primary” material, but it could be Although there are numerous ways to describe the dif- manure or any number of other feedstocks. ferent phases of composting, for our purposes this guide differentiates only two basic stages of composting, active Question 2 and curing. There are slightly different assumptions used How much “primary” feedstock will you process? to calculate the space requirements in each stage and Or conversely, efficiencies to be gained by calculating them separately. How much finished compost do you wish to produce? Turning practices and the common length of each phase are described below: Often, future operators starting their planning process only know the answer to one of these questions. Luckily, Active Phase – Once the compost is blended and by answering either one, you can use educated assump- stacked on the composting pad, the active phase of tions to answer the other, which will give you an initial composting begins. This is where compost will meet estimate of both the inputs processed (primary and addi- the Process to Further Reduce Pathogens or PFRP, tional feedstocks) and outputs produced (finished com- which is a heat treatment that involves turning the pile post) by your composting facility. Part 2: Two Approaches to insure all of the compost meets a minimum of 131 F to Identifying Target Scale, will walk you through the for at least 3 days. The ability to actively and efficiently simple math that will provide this complete picture. turn the compost will continue until the compost is ready to begin curing. Often this takes 8 or 9 months Question 3 using the turned windrow method in Vermont, al- though with a windrow turner How often will you process the “primary” feedstock as and/or an aggressive it comes in? turning regime it can certainly take Most composters receive or generate their pri- less time. mary feedstock on a regular time interval, daily, weekly, or monthly. For food scraps composters 3 Sizing Your Composting Pad Curing Phase – After the active phase of composting, curing and storage area. At this late stage of the com- most composters finish their compost by “curing” it. In posting process, oxygen demand is minimal, and large general, curing compost can remain aerobic with only piles can maintain quality, even when stacked >8 feet passive oxygen supplied by convection, as long as the tall. Worth noting, in Vermont, finished compost can be compost is adequately porous and the windrows are stored outside of the permitted compost management relatively small. For this reason, piles can be stacked
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