Reliance Compost
Project Description
We would like to see a world in which composting companies of tomorrow replace the oil companies of today in the local economy. For this reason it was great to be able to sign an carbon credit supply agreement with Reliance Compost, the company that handles most of Cape Town’s green waste in October 2012.
Reliance is a composting company established in 1998. The company was initially started out of the need for quality compost for use in an organic export tablegrape operation. Several production methods were evaluated, but it decided to employ the help of the Lübke family from Austria and their pioneering Controlled Microbial Composting (CMC) method. The company was awarded the “Cleaner Cape Town Award” for their efforts in assisting the City of Cape Town in managing its own green waste.
The project is located in the rural Berg River Municipality 60 kilometres north east of Cape Town.
The waste is taken from Green Waste Transfer Stations (GWTS) in Cape Town where it is sorted and the green waste is decontaminated if necessary and chipped to reduce the volume. The chipped material is brought to the composting site where it is treated and accumulated in piles. A continuous turn-over of the waste ensures on-going aerobic decomposition. Aeration of these piles is ensured by rotation acc. to the Soil and More procedures for production of high quality compost. Roughly 400 000 m3 of chipped waste is composted annually.
The baseline for the composted material assumes that it would have been transferred from the GWTS to one of two landfills. Under business as usual the waste would have been taken to one of the GWTS before being transferred to one of the landfill sites.
The carbon credits are generated through a specially developed composting technology that helps to address some of the world’s biggest environmental and agricultural problems (soil degradation, climate change through increased carbon dioxide emissions, the excessive use of water, and the increasing amount of waste).
Composted product is organically certified and used in a range of environmentally sustainable agricultural and gardening activities.
Emission Reduction Methodologies involved
- AMS III.E v. 7 : “Avoidance of methane production from biomass decay through controlled combustion”
- AMS III.F v. 5: “Avoidance of methane production from biomass decay through composting”
The composting methodology (AMS III.F v. 5) requires that green material should not stand idle for more than two weeks. At the Reliance site, composting rows are turned (aerated) 5-6 times a week in the first two weeks when methane build up is most likely and 3-4 times a week in subsequent weeks. The composting period is 8 weeks.
Project Idea Note
A Project Idea Note (PIN) was drawn up to formalise the project scope with regards to carbon credits.
Total Credits Sold: 1 300 824