The Sonoma Ecology Center, in collaboration with Napa Recycling, A Plus Tree, and Advanced Renewable Technologies International (ARTi), are holding an Open House and tour of the newly installed biochar production demonstration project at the Napa Recycling and Compost Facility. This event, open to the public, is on Saturday May 3^rd from 10:30 to 12:30 at 820 Levitan Way in American Canyon. Ribbon cutting at 11 AM.

This project, funded through a CAL FIRE Urban Forestry grant, has been 4 years in the making and was finally permitted in late February after a challenging regulatory journey.  Along the way we helped to change the way the USEPA and our local air district categorizes clean woody biomass as a process ingredient for making biochar instead of as a municipal solid waste.

The goal of the project is to determine if woody waste materials produced by the urban tree care industry can be successfully upcycled into biochar and co-located at an existing compost facility in the Bay Area. Biochar, a very stable form of carbon, has been used for centuries to improve soil health, increase plant production in poor soils, and reduce water and nutrient needs. Biochar also has many other emerging uses including as a filtration media for urban stormwater, for brownfield/mine remediation, as a replacement ingredient in asphalt for road construction, as an input for other construction materials such as wallboard and concrete. and even as an input to cattle feed to reduce enteric methane release. As a bonus, it reduces GHG releases during composting while speeding up the process as well, and biochar is considered a “natural climate solution” as a relatively low-cost form of carbon sequestration. 

Please join us for an introduction to this innovative project and product hosted by Napa Recycling and learn how local communities can benefit by converting clean, woody materials into “black gold”.

For more information contact Raymond Baltar. [email protected]. 707 291-3240