Boston-Converted Organics, which converts food wastes into fertilizer with a proprietary thermal process, has settled a suit that threatened to shut down its plant in Woodbridge, N.J. The suit was filed in Middlesex County Superior Court on May 19, 2009, by Lefcourt Associates Ltd., which owns property adjoining the plant location. The suit claims a private and public nuisance was being caused by odors resulting from the facility’s operations. But Lefcourt, which sought compensatory and punitive damages, apparently wasn’t the only party concerned about the situation. According to Converted Organics spokeswoman Kaitlyn Siner, “We’ve attributed the potential cause of the odor emissions to be due to the use of International Bio Recovery digester tanks installed in the plant. We switched to California Liquid Fertilizer digesters, which is technology we use at our Gonzales, Calif., facility. This brought about a significant decrease in odor levels.” The company also hired two odor control consultants to assist with the corrective process, and it implemented new operational procedures that were recommended by the consultants. “Since then,” Siner noted, “we have not experienced any significant issues, and believe that the suit dismissal is evidence of this. We also took production down from full capacity while investigating to ensure that the potential for odor nuisance was reduced and took all appropriate measures to resolve the issue. Had this matter not been resolved, we would have faced the potential for our operations to be either interrupted or terminated.”
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain