Boston firm gets OK for R.I. fertilizer plant

BOSTON – Converted Organics Inc. (NASDAQ:COIN) announced last week that it plans to develop a manufacturing facility in Rhode Island, its third plant to make organic soil amendments and fertilizers through food waste recycling.
In a news release, the Boston-based company said that on Aug. 1, the R.I. Industrial Facilities Corporation had given initial approval to the company’s revenue bond financing application for up to $15 million to build a facility in Johnston.
On Aug. 5, the R.I. Resource Recovery Corporation gave final approval to Converted Organics to lease nine acres of land in the newly created Lakeside Commerce Industrial Park in Johnston; the company had already applied to the R.I. Department of Environmental Management for permission to run a putrescible waste recycling center on the site.
“We are extremely pleased to have begun the process that we believe will enable Converted Organics to develop our third state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in two years,” said Edward J. Gildea, president of Converted Organics, in the release.
“The Johnston, R.I., plant will play an integral role in helping us meet demand from our agribusiness, municipal, retail and turf management customers for our all-natural organic fertilizers,” he added. “We look forward to continued progress on the development of this site. Upon completion of this plant, Converted Organics’ three plants will be permitted to process up to 850 tons of food waste per day.”
Converted Organics began operations at its flagship facility in Woodbridge, N.J., in June. It is also expanding capacity at its West Coast facility in Gonzales, Calif., which was acquired in January of this year.
The company says it plans to sell and distribute its products in the retail, turf management and agribusiness markets, both as dry pellets and as liquid concentrate. The products have been tested in numerous field trials for more than a dozen crops and have been shown to increase yields and suppress disease; they also reduce the need for nitrogen, thus reducing the chemical runoff into streams, ponds and rivers, the company said.
In the news release, Gov. Donald L. Carcieri called Converted Organics “an innovator in green technologies” and said its coming to the state “is an important win in our economic development plan to support new and emerging businesses.”
“Green businesses create new ‘green collar’ jobs as well as solid opportunities to connect existing small and local businesses to the emerging market opportunities,” he added, “meeting the demand for green goods and services.”