Yard Trim Composting Facility

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2014

The Montgomery County Yard Trim Composting Facility (the Facility) has demonstrated how to develop a formal Environmental Management System (EMS) meeting the international ISO14001:2004 standard for EMS development but tailored to the operations of a yard trim composting facility. This is only the second such facility in the nation to be independently certified in conformance with this rigorous international standard, and the EMS involves Facility’s host community, and creates programs that reach well beyond the scope of current environmental regulation and assures continuous environmental improvement. The Facility, located in Dickerson, Maryland, receives leaves and grass from a residential population of about one million people—about 65,000 tons per year—and is part of the County’s integrated waste management system, which is currently achieving overall 60% diversion from landfilling. It was in order to advance its environmentally progressive mission that Montgomery County pursued a formal EMS conforming to the ISO14001:2004 standard. The EMS yielded not just a new environmental program, but a “program of programs”—a host of new environmental programs suited to a range of local needs and concerns. Also, the County demonstrated that developing such a formal EMS in this way is neither costly nor difficult to carry out.