Acton, CA | clhinkel@301organics.com

Christine Lenches-Hinkel is the Founder and President of 301 Organics. She has a Master’s degree in Forestry with an emphasis in International Resource Conservation from the University of Montana. She has over 20 years of combined experience in environmental planning, regulatory compliance (CEQA/NEPA), environmental science, and field training having worked for various large and boutique environmental consulting firms. For the past 10 years, she has focused her work on food waste recovery, diversion and composting planning for institutional clients, such as the Rose Bowl Stadium, University of Hawaii, University of La Verne, Riverside City College and other K-12 schools.  She is also in training to become a certified Soil Food Web Consultant and Lab Technician.

Session Code: D2

Track: California

Session Name: Compliance and Impacts

Session Time: Wednesday, Jan 25, 1:45 to 3:15 PM

Presentation Title: Pasadena Rose Bowl Stadium Composting

Presentation Description: Located in the heart of Los Angeles County, the Rose Bowl Stadium is a world-renowned sports and entertainment facility. It is becoming a leader in establishing best management practices for food waste recovery, organics management, processing and compost. The Rose Bowl Stadium manages over 60 acres of recreational space, golf course turf grass and athletic fields including the iconic football field inside the stadium. It has been diverting its food waste from landfills since 2019 and since 2020 it has been processing its own food waste with the launch of a pilot on-site composting operation. To date, the Stadium has processed over 70 tons of food waste and produced 20 cy of compost, used on-site on its own rose beds, turf grass and trees.

The composting operation is managed by 301 Organics with a team of composting technicians that are sourced and trained locally at the site.  In 2021 and 2022, the Stadium conducted various field trials to demonstrate that the compost performed just as well as the synthetic chemical fertilizer.  Due to the high-profile nature of the facility, compost quality and performance was of the utmost importance. As such, compost testing and the soil food web approach was followed to evaluate the quality of the compost being applied.

In addition, other trials involving in-vessel biomechanical systems were installed to assess the operational efficiency of processing the facility’s food waste. This is to determine if an investment in this type of technology would be beneficial from an operational standpoint. In general, traditional ASP composting practices yield far-better quality compost than any of the in-vessel machines tested to date.