Cedar Grove Gives Back to the Community

Cedar Grove is a local company that gives back to the community by providing green jobs, supporting local schools and non-profits, donating to pea patches and food banks, and educating kids and adults on better environmental stewardship through recycling , composting, and innovations in compost applications. Here are just some of the many ways Cedar Grove has supported outlying communities in just the last two years.

Snohomish County

7th Ave SE Neighborhood Meeting. Everett. Education and complimentary compost bags.


ARTS Council of Snohomish County. Everett. Donation of free Cedar Grove Compost bags for Schack Art Center.


Bayside Bicenntennial Pea Patch. Everett. Compost donation for community garden to grow local, all-natural and healthy food.


Bethlehem Lutheran Church/Wilcox Farms. Marysville. Donated 90 yards to a community garden project to grow local, natural and healthy food for the community.


Boeing Health Fair. Everett. Educational booth to teach local Boeing workers about natural gardening and the importance of recycling in the community.

Campbell's Stock Pot United Way. Everett. Donation of bulk soils gift for fundraiser.


Cascade View Neighborhood Meetings. Everett. Education and complimentary product bags.


Cedarwood Elementary. Bothell. Bulk vegetable garden mix for school garden.


Delta Neighborhood Association. Education and complimentary compost bags..


ECEAP Healthy Families, Marysville, Everett and Arlington.Pre-School community gardens received vegetable growing soil for gardens.


City of Everett. Donation of potting soil bags and compostable packaging for public events to do education on sustainable communities.


Everett Art Space Project: The City of Everett Economic Development Office. Soils donation for river front restoration project.

Everett Senior Center. Potting soil bags donation.


Focus on Farming, 2009. Snohomish and Skagit Counties. Supplied local farmers over 1300 yards of free compost to work toward sustainable farming and food program for the Snohomish/Skagit/King county region.


Growing Groceries.

Interfaith Community Shelter

Interfaith Community Shelter. Marysville. Donation of soils to grow community food for homeless and battered women.


Jennings Park-Marysville. Since 2009, Cedar Grove has donated compost to the Master Gardeners to help keep the park naturally thriving so Marysville residents can enjoy a healthy park.


Marysville Cooperative Education Program. Donation of 5 yards of compost to annual spring auction fundraising event to support education programs in the community.


Marysville Transition Program. Marysville.Donation of bulk topsoil to their new garden. The students there have varying learning challenges. They learn life skills at this school. They, with the help of volunteers and donors, made raised beds and raised their own vegetables. They used this as a life skill lesson. The food not eaten by the students and their families, was donated to the Marysville Food Bank.


Master Gardeners, McCullen Park. 2010. Donation of compost pallets.


Mountainview High School, Marysville. 2010. Cedar Grove provided special discounts to the school on 115 yards of mulch needed for to ensure a recycled, all-natural, water-saving mulch could be applied around the campus.


Mukilteo Community Garden. Mukilteo. Donation of 11 yards of compost for the garden

Local Pea-Patch

Olivia Park Elementary School Gardens. Cooperative support for their rain garden installation.


The Orange Blossom Society. General donations.


Rotary Fall Auction, Marysville. Cedar Grove donates gift items annually to the fall auction to help serve local charities.


St. Joseph School Auction. Auction item donation.


Snohomish County Dahlia Society. Donation of product for growing media.


Snohomish County Sustainable Task Force. Support and host site for meetings.


Snohomish County Master Gardeners. Ongoing educational outreach and product support to tie community to recycling and natural gardening.

Sorticulture. 2007-2010. Annual title sponsor and educator for this annual gardening and arts event.


Stilly- Snohomish Fisheries. 2010. Donation of 10 yards compost to help support protection of vital fish habitat and keep streams healthy. The goal is to plant 1000 native plant seedlings to be used during a volunteer, stream side planting project along Allen Creek in Marysville to benefit fish, wildlife, and water quality.


King County

Boeing Classic PGA Event. Snoqualmie. Sponsor and donor in 2009-2010 for one of the highest recycling rates in national PGA event history.


Delridge Pea Patch. Seattle. Bulk compost given to community garden to amend existing soils.


Food Lifeline, 2010. Seattle. Underwriting sponsor and participant in annual corporate fundraising Food Frenzy drive.


Friends of the Cedar River. Maple Valley. Biorention soils and various bulk soil contributions.


Issaquah Salmon Days. Issaquah. Title sponsor and donor for 2009 award winning event striving for zero-waste.


Issaquah Schools. Issaquah. Donations of soil to all school gardens requesting assistance in growing crops for student gardens.


King County Master Composters. Educational support at annual trainings.


King County Master Gardeners. Ongoing educational outreach and product support to tie community to recycling and natural gardening.


King Street Co-op. Seattle. Donation of bulk soil amendments for community garden.

Seattle Children's Garden

Lakeshore Garden Club. Seattle.Potting soil donations.


Lake Wilderness Arboretum. Maple Valley. Donation of recycling services.for local arboretum.


Maple Valley Schools. Maple Valley. Donations of soil to all community and school gardens requesting assistance in growing crops for students or citizens within the community.


Mariners Earth Day Sponsor. Since 2008, annual support for Mariner's earth day game to teach attendees about recycling, community, and the impact of doing your part to keep waste out of landfills.


Marymoor Park. Compost donation to park projects.


Master Builders of King County. Host site for stormwater management courses done in conjunction with AGC and Seattle Public Utilities.


O-Dea High School. Annual auction donor.


City of Seattle, Compost Days 2010. Gave away over 25,000 bags of Cedar Grove product during joint co-op campaign to provide the community a gift back for the efforts to recycle while also reminding people pf the importance of using recycled compost in their gardens.


Seattle Tilth. Major annual donor for edible plant sale.

Marra Farms

Seattle Youth Garden Works. Primary donor of all soils (over 100 yards per year) to the Marra Farms project to provide work and housing to homeless youth in Seattle.


South Park Fresh Starts. Potting soil donation to south Seattle food growing program.


UW Botanical Gardens. Donation of soils for University of Washington on campus project.


Washington Cathedral. Soil donation for campus.


Washington Native Plant Society. Annual donations.


White Center Community Development. Bulk topsoil donation for community garden.

The Nature Consortium

Danny Woo Community Garden. Bulk soil donation for community garden.

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Cedar Grove Supports The Marysville Community

Cedar Grove would like the opportunity to directly address some concerns that were raised both in the Monday meeting in Marysville as well as in the press. For starters - many of our plant workers and operations team live and work in Marysville. The community of Marysville is extremely important to us. We care what you think and appreciate your feedback!

Please consider the following:

1. Cedar Grove has and will continue to take responsibility for its odor management activities. Odor control is one of the most important elements of successful, large scale composting operations and we have spent millions of dollars to continuously improve our systems to the point that they are recognized as truly state of the art. We will continue to invest when new technology becomes available and is proven to improve odor control.

2. We can be our most effective at this if we focus our resources and energies in areas related to our specific plant operations. This means accurate identification of odor sources and characteristics. As long-term Marysville and Everett residents know, odors were present in the area before Cedar Grove arrived. As many of them have commented in response to local news stories, they also know that other sources of odor including a large topsoil plant, a tannery, a municipal sewage plant and other potential odor sources are located on or near Smith Island. When odors from these facilities are mistaken for our operations, we cannot do anything to stop them and this leads to increased frustration all around. We want to work with you so that all potential odor sources, including Cedar Grove, are addressed in odor control efforts.

3. The press has speculated that increasing the amount of food waste in the composting process has resulted in increased odors. There is no evidence to support this. The odor citations we are reviewing relate to finished compost, not the objectionable odor of decomposing organics that some people have described. Finished compost smells the same whether or not food waste is mixed with other organics.

4. Food waste is not a new feedstock at Cedar Grove, and our technology for processing food waste successfully without adding odors has been in place since the plant opened in 2004. Facility upgrades made in Everett in 2008 enclose virtually all the food mixing and offload activities. Although food waste has increased as a feedstock over time at Everett, it is still a minor percentage of the inbound material we process. A majority of our compost material is still green waste, wood waste, and garden and yard clippings. We have given many public tours at our site, and hear repeated comments on how impressed our visitors are with our success in managing odors.

5. We continue to work with the Clean Air Agency to operate our facility in accordance with their directives on odor control.

We welcome the opportunity to demonstrate our odor control systems to you on a tour of our facility. Please contact megane@cgcompost.com and sign up to join a tour. Also -we'd like to offer the services of our independent odor specialist so that you can participate with us in tracking odors to their sources.

As we move forward, please feel free to contact us about any odor complaints you may have. The sooner we know about problems, the sooner we can correct them if they come from our operations.

For Marysville and Everett residents: please come visit us!

We want to you to know that we are accessible to you and are inviting you to visit members of your Leadership Team for a private visit of our site and operations. We are offering you the opportunity to:

-Review our hours of operation, permit requirements, inbound load and processing procedures site layout, and compost technology.

- Come and see what your inbound loads look like on a typical day ( you might be surprised)!

-See our odor management technology and practices related to:

Receiving

Mixing

Active composting

-Magnetic metal retrieval, finished product applications

-Look at, touch, smell and feel samples of our finished compost.

-Free bags of compost, potting soil or topsoil to try in your yard.

-Compostablity testing.

Sign ups are on a first come first serve basis. Tour times run on weekdays at 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., and we will confirm dates and time slots. Space is limited to 10 per tour group, so invite your friends and neighbors if you'd like. If you need other times and days, we will do our best to meet your needs. To get on the tour list, please e-mail: megane@cgcompost.com. She will get back to you with date and time.