EPA Awards $4 Million for Baltimore Composting Facility

A $4 million Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant will help the city of Baltimore build the nation’s largest municipally managed composting facility, reports Christine Condon in the Baltimore Sun.

The proposed Bowley’s Lane Composting Facility will likely break ground in 2025. “According to its 10-Year Solid Waste Management Plan, Baltimore City already had plans to expand the Eastern Sanitation Yard along Bowleys Lane, near Moravia Road, to include a transfer station for trash trucks. According to an EPA fact sheet, the composting facility would be co-located with the new transfer station.”

The solar-powered facility will be able to process 12,000 tons of organic material each year. As Condon notes, “In 2021, Maryland legislators passed a law requiring certain large generators of food waste, such as higher education institutions, to separate their scraps for composting. But the law only applies to facilities within 30 miles of a compost facility with the capacity to handle their materials.”