Virginia Beach-Nutrients PLUS of Virginia Beach has an agreement with officials of Amherst, N.Y., to buy as much as 1,500 tons of pelletized biosolids produced at the town’s waste water treatment plant for use in the company’s organic and natural-based fertilizer production. Nutrients PLUS owner/manager John Moriarty told Green Markets that the deal is win-win. “Obviously it’s good for the citizens of Amherst,” Moriarty said. “There are only two dozen or so plants that process waste to fertilizer in this fashion out of tens of thousands. Society needs more facilities like this. The town can take great pride in that there’s not just a lot of Class A biosolids produced in this country.” He said the Amherst product will fit in nicely at Nutrients Plus, where he described processes as “waste stream neutral sourcing organic material from a variety of sources such as feather meal and corn gluten, but with a focus on poultry compost from the layer industry, as well as exceptional quality biosolids from waste water treatment plants.” Moriarty says talk about problems with the Amherst plant are overstated by detractors and the press. News reports describe the town as struggling for years to make “big bucks” off its $8 million investment in the pelletizer program, started in 1996. But the trouble-prone pelletizer never lived up to expectations, according to the reports, resulting in hundreds of tons of pellets being wasted each year. The agreement with Nutrients PLUS is said to have been produced from nearly a year of negotiations, resulting in as much as $45,000 in revenue for the town. Up until now, the most the pellets have sold for is $10 a ton, and some have been given away or thrown away.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain