Welcome Letter

Welcome to Cedar Grove Composting. As you depart from a visit to our Maple Valley, Washington facility, our sign says: "Thank You for Closing the Recycling Loop at Cedar Grove Composting". I'd like to tell how Cedar Grove came into being.

Sixty-five years ago, John Banchero, Sr., started a waste disposal company in Seattle. Through the years, he emphasized customer service and integrity in every aspect of our business. Under his leadership, we grew into one of the leading waste management companies in the Northwest. You may have known us as Rabanco or Northwest Waste Industries.

In the early 1980's, we were an early innovator in recycling, establishing one of the finest paper recycling programs in businesses throughout Seattle. In response to state and local initiatives encouraging intensive recycling programs in the late 1980s, Cedar Grove Composting was awarded a contract to compost Seattle's yard trimmings. The residential program was immediately popular with its customers, so much so that we processed more than twice the expected volumes in 1989. A total of 43,000 tons was received in its first year of operation. Since then contracts to process the surrounding regions' yard trimmings followed. By 2002, Cedar Grove had processed over 1.7 million tons of yard trimmings.

Now, Cedar Grove Composting operates the largest single dedicated yard waste composting facility in the United States on 26 acres in the community of Maple Valley, Washington. The facility contains a scale house, office, compost manufacturing and screening areas, computer monitoring system, bagging division, wastewater treatment system and weather station.

We have invested heavily in technology to make the premium compost our customers enjoy. Utilizing aerated static pile composting technology from the Netherlands, Cedar Grove transforms pure organic waste materials including garden and produce trimmings into nutrient-rich compost. The resulting compost and compost-based products are used as soil amendments, manufactured topsoil, potting mediums and mulches to improve the fertility and health of poor soils and to reduce the need for chemical fertilizers and intensive water applications.

Now as we expand our compost sales into Oregon, we also are adapting new technology from Germany to make Cedar Grove Compost even better, while giving us the flexibility to locate large-scale composting facilities throughout the Northwest.

Thank you for your loyalty to Cedar Grove Composting.

Sincerely,

Jerry Bartlett
Vice President and Co-Owner, Cedar Grove Composting, Inc.