🔒Circular Services opens bagging facility to bring Southington-made compost to retail shelves

Circular Services has opened a new automated bagging line at its Southington composting campus that will, for the first time, put the company’s branded compost, soils and mulch on retail shelves across Connecticut. The new line, unveiled Wednesday, adds three new positions, bringing the total headcount to 58. At the facility, Circular Services collects food scraps and yard waste from municipalities and businesses, then uses an anaerobic digester to process the material into Class I renewable energy and compost. The site’s overall processing capacity remains at roughly 40,000 tons of food scraps and 500,000 cubic yards of green waste per year. The expansion creates a way to package the material for commercial buyers, with output capped at 3 million bags annually. Bagged products are already on shelves at ShopRite, Caraluzzi's Markets, E.R. Hinman & Sons and Animal Pet House & Garden Center, and through the Housatonic Resource Recovery Authority, the company said. Circular Services also produces private-label compost and soils for larger regional retailers and continues to sell to about 6,000 customers who buy material by the yard onsite. The campus is open to walk-in buyers Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. during the spring and fall. Formerly known as Quantum Organics, the site is Connecticut’s largest and longest-running organics processing facility and home to what the company describes as the largest anaerobic digester in the Northeast. Power produced on-site flows back to the grid through a virtual net metering arrangement with Eversource, with credits applied to Town of Southington municipal buildings and the local wastewater treatment plant. State and local officials, including Gov. Ned Lamont, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes and Southington Town Manager Alex Ricciardone, attended a ribbon-cutting last week. The Connecticut Green Bank financed half the project's capital costs, according to the company. “This new facility in Southington expands on Connecticut’s overall goals of creating a cleaner, more efficient, and most cost-effective waste stream while generating energy for our communities,” Lamont said. “The work being done here is good for the environment, good for the grid, and supports local jobs.” Organic material accounts for roughly 40% of the state’s overall waste stream, and Connecticut’s Commercial Organics Recycling Law has pushed large food-waste generators to divert that material from landfills and incinerators. Dykes said the new line advances those goals as in-state disposal capacity tightens and tipping fees climb. “Circular Services has long been a great partner in that effort, supporting organics diversion from the waste stream, and transforming that diverted material into useful byproducts such as energy and nutrient-rich soil, compost, and mulch,” Dykes said. The company operates more than 35 recycling and organics processing facilities nationwide, including nine composting sites.