AGAWAM – An organic recycling facility is going to be built in the city of Agawam.

The company, Vanguard Renewables, initially went before the Agawam Planning Board during the July 18 meeting to present their site plan. Vanguard was once again before the planning board on Aug. 1, where their site plans were approved.

The facility is planned for a building at 299 Main St. that has been vacant for a number of years. The recycling plant, however, is not a traditional facility that sorts plastic, paper, and glass.

Vanguard works with dairy farms to build manure processors. The company, which already has facilities at Barstow’s Longview Farm in Hadley and By-Way Farm, Inc. in Deerfield, told the planning board during the July 18 meeting that they have designed the Agawam facility to meet a need in the area.

The farm powered anaerobic digesters, according to Vanguard’s website, “combines food-based organic waste and farm manure for the environmentally sustainable production of renewable energy and other valuable by-products.”

The first part of the process includes non-farm waste being delivered and combined with manure at the farm. Currently, the process at Vanguard’s other facilities cannot take packaged food material. However, at the Agawam facility, packaged food waste could be delivered and separated.

The solid waste would then be taken to the landfill, and the food waste would go on the second part of the process, which is where the waste and manure would go into a sealed digester tank to be broken down into biogas. This biogas, according to Vanguard's website, then generates renewable energy and heat for farms and energy for the community feedstock providers and local businesses.

Any remaining digested material then becomes a liquid “odor-free, nutrient rich, natural fertilizer” which increases farm crop yields. Another benefit of the process is that cow bedding, or hay, which cannot be separated from the manure when it is collected, is cleaned, sanitized, and able to be reused.

The company has planned extensively for odor-control for the facility and will install a number of ways to reduce any potential smell including carbon filters. Also planned for odor-control will be the installation of fast acting doors which will be triggered by the weight of a truck and reduce excessive odor.

While the majority of the property will be hidden behind a row of existing trees in the front, the company ensured the planning board during the July meeting that no real processing would take place outside the building. Instead the liquid fertilizer will go directly from the facility to tanker trucks via hoses.

The Main Street facility is also different than the other Vanguard operations in Western Massachusetts. The existing facilities, at the moment, cannot take food that is inside of solid waste, or food packaging. This location, however, will be different as it will receive both food packaging and food, and separate the waste from the food they’re able to recycle.

“What this allows them to do is to take packaged food that would otherwise go to a landfill because the recyclable part for them is what’s inside the packaging,” said Civil Engineer with Tetratech, Sean Reardon. “This facility separates them, makes sure their waystream that’s going to their digesters is clean of any waste product and then the other materials that are solid waste can be easily recycled through those processes.”

However, not all food can be recycled through Vanguard’s process. Development Manager at Vanguard, Sol Ucciani, told Reminder Publishing the company is in talks with the town’s health commissioner.

“We’ve been talking with her about what she would like to see and things like that,” she said. “We haven’t agreed to anything yet, because we are very particular with what we can bring in.”

Ucciani said foods with certain ingredients cannot be put through Vanguard’s recycling process and with the DEP permit they have, they need to be very strict about what food they bring into the facility.  

Ucciani said the next steps are to get their permits in order and start construction later this year. After construction begins they expect work to last about six months. ­­