Will Bakx, Sonoma County's Premier Composter!
Last Thursday’s speaker was Will Bakx, formerly of Sonoma Compost and now an owner of Renewable Sonoma. From 1993 to 2015, under Will's guidance Sonoma Compost operated under an exclusive contract with the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency to turn waste at the Central Landfill into compost. After closing Sonoma Compost Will and his partner have reinvented composting in Sonoma County by starting up Renewable Sonoma. This project will be a partnership with a general contractor, EPC, and an operations company, Suez, and will include a new receiving, sorting and grinding facility plus a state-of-the art Anaerobic Digester. The facility will be a complete organic composting operation powered by biogas generated by the digester and solar. The entire facility should be carbon negative!
Composting is extremely important for our ecosystem. Organics in our landfills are a waste of usable materials and create a huge methane problem. Methane is a significant contributor to carbon emissions. The State of California is mandating strong limits and reductions on what goes into landfills. Renewable Sonoma’s goal is to “Reduce, Reuse and Recyle.” It will facilitate reuse of lumber and plants, as well as other compostable material.
Composting is also a key to the reduction of global warming. Increasing carbon in the soil decreases carbon in the atmosphere in a process Will refers to as “downdraw.” Will believes that we should stop focusing on the reduction of carbon emissions and instead focus on increasing carbon in the soil. Will also referred to the concept of carbon sequestration, which includes the using soil and plants to capture airborne carbon and deposit it into the soil.
Will hopes that the facility will be operational by 2022, but this goal may be overly ambitious. He’s working on it!! Thanks, Will for the great talk and for your long history of service to this County. We can’t wait to see Renewable Sonoma in operation!
