Since 1991, the county has used twigs, grass and food waste from restaurants to create compost. Trucks and other earth-moving equipment are used to ventilate and arrange more than 120 piles of compost, some of which are as tall as a four-story building. All this, officials say, helps reduce the waste in the county’s landfill.
Without machines, it can take as long as nine months to finish the compost conversion process. But the county recently reached an agreement with a contractor who hopes to cut that time dramatically by using a little technology.
The Prince William Board of County Supervisors recently approved an agreement with Freestate Farms, a local agricultural services and production company that plans to construct a building at the county’s Balls Ford Road Compost Facility in Manassas.