A unique new Springfield facility gets a grant to help it fight trash waste. Here’s what will happen.

A unique compost facility meant to be odorleess that is set to be built outside the downtown Springfield area has received a state grant to aid in its construction.

Officials from the Clark County Commissioner’s Office recently accepted a $250,000 grant from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency’s Market Development Program for the Central Springfield Compostery of Clark County, Ohio. The facility, which will be built at 256 Linden Ave., will focus on collecting food waste from homes and medium-sized businesses like restaurants, hospitals and schools and turning it into compost. The site is expected to be operational within the year.

David Andre, the owner of Econopia and operator of the facility, said the money will be used to purchase the composting drums the site will use to contain their materials.

“The Market Development Program deals very specifically with purchasing equipment,” he said. “We’re planning to have two 8-foot-wide by 40-foot-long composting drums here on site and that will be the heart of the facility.”

Andre said the compostery is a new style of compost site which hasn’t been tried before.

“What we’re doing here is looking to establish proof of concept for a different flavor of composting facility,” he said. “Food waste composting in the state of Ohio is usually done on a very large scale 40 miles outside of town in the countryside. We are proving a concept here where we’re trying to do food waste composting in an urban setting that doesn’t provide a nuisance for the neighborhood.”

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