Brady Trucking entered the composting business as a natural extension of its years in the mulching sector. | Courtesy of Brady Trucking Co.
A Pacific Northwest composting facility has been brought on-line by a perhaps surprising entrant into the food scraps processing industry: a trucking company.
Brady Trucking Co. has opened the covered aerated static pile facility in Shelton, Wash., bringing in food scraps and yard debris from around Thurston County, which is home to the state’s capital, Olympia. The facility is located at the four-decade-old company’s existing mulch production operations.
“Once we looked closely at the numbers and conceptual operating plans, we realized this was just the natural next step for our business,” Evan Brady, co-owner of Brady Trucking, stated in a press release. “For years we’ve been purchasing compost in bulk to have availability for our mulch clients who also need compost. Now we’re able to efficiently make our own compost while keeping food waste out of landfills.”
Founded in 1982, Brady Trucking got into the business by hauling bark, wood chips and sawdust generated at lumber mills in Oregon and Washington. Brady processes the raw bark into landscaping products, which it sells itself. Some of those mulch customers also want compost, however.
Brady Trucking’s new composting facility, designed by Green Mountain Technologies of Bainbridge Island, Wash., is capable of and permitted to process 50,000 tons per year of organics, with a current construction peak capacity of 30,000 tons annually. The feedstock will come from third-party collection services, and roughly 10% of it will consist of food scraps.
The release noted that the company saw a business opportunity stemming from House Bill 1799, which was signed into law in Olympia in 2022 and makes a number of legal changes aimed at diverting organics from landfills in coming years.