March 19, 2024

Valley of the Moon nominated for Iowa Recycling Excellence Award

Local hatchery cut landfill waste by 75 percent

When Jeremiah Johnson became the assistant hatchery manager for Valley of the Moon, he had his mind set on improving efficiency. By chance, his efforts led to a massive revolution in the way the plant processes waste. It’s been so successful, other businesses have started following their model. The company was also nominated for the 2017 Iowa Recycling Excellent Awards.

“Of course people are going to start following you if you’ve got results,” said Johnson. “The data speaks for itself.”

According to Scott Amendt of Green RU, the hatchery has eliminated 75 percent of its landfill waste since 2014. In 2016 alone, over 1,600 tons of garbage was diverted away from the landfill and made into something of use.

Green RU composts the hatch waste, such as bedding and eggs that didn’t hatch. Mid America Recycling in Des Moines takes the hatchery’s cardboard, plastic film and broken plastic containers, turning them into new materials, like plastic crates and composite lumber.

“The market demand for scrap cardboard will never go away,” said Mid America Recycling Territory Representative Dave Klockau. “Volume and value drive recycling.”

Valley of the Moon makes a small amount of money bundling their cast-off plastics and paper and shipping them to Mid America Recycling. It results in about $3,000 a year. Where the system really pays off, however, is avoiding dumping fees. The hatchery’s 40-yard dumpster used to be emptied up to nine times a month, at a cost of $1,723.68 per trip.

So far for 2017?

“I’ve only had to call those people three times,” said Johnson.

Financially and environmentally, the program is a resounding success, and it came about almost by accident.

“All I really did was picked up the phone,” said Johnson, who’d grown tired of calling for garbage pickup several times a month. “We got lucky here. We were able to meet up with the right people.”

The move allowed the company to go green and save some green too.

Hatchery Manager Michael Iseman is enthusiastic about growing the program, and he’s ready to invest in order to do it. Ultimately, the goal is producing no landfill waste at all.

“It’s the little things now that are showing big differences,” said Johnson. “We keep getting more efficient. Environmentally it’s good, and economically it’s good.”

The best part?

“We’ve made an imprint for others to follow,” he said.

Johnson moved to Osceola in second grade. He left after graduation to attend Buena Vista and came back just in time to see the landfill here close. Now, he’s on a mission to conserve what resources we have left.

“If we had taken corrective action then, maybe it would still be open for our kids,” he said.

According to Iseman, there’s plenty of room in the hatchery business left for improvement.

“Most people don’t know that in order to eat that turkey at Thanksgiving, the planning … is a five-year ordeal,” Iseman said, noting improvements in the efficiency of the process will have a major impact on productivity – and on waste.

Just having the ability to determine the sex of an egg before it’s hatched would make a huge difference, he said. Instead of investing resources into hatching eggs for smaller female birds, those eggs could be used in other, more lucrative food products.

“If we could automate that,” said Iseman, “it would revolutionize the business.”

For now, they’ll have to settle for blazing a trail in the industry toward zero waste.