Canadian-built bioreactor composting food and garden waste at 8,000-room resort in Cancun, Mexico
Ontario-based XACT Systems recently installed a BioReactor Composting System at a resort in Cancun, Mexico to compost all of the site’s food and organic waste. The Cancun Palace Resort is home to 8,000 rooms, generates 2,500 tons of organic waste per year, and management needed to reduce their high waste haulage costs and landfill tipping fees. In addition, the resort wanted to take meaningful action to reduce their GHG emissions.
According to XACT Systems, the Palace Resort was able to solve both objectives effectively by choosing the XACT BioReactor Composting System to compost their organic waste. As an added bonus, the company says, the Cancun Palace Hotel’s corporate image has been enhanced by their responsible waste management initiative, and ROI is only 18 months.
The BioReactor is currently composting food waste from the resort’s kitchens and dining rooms as well as green and brown gardening residue. Food waste from the kitchens and dining rooms is collected separately and taken to the onsite composter for composting.
The waste is processed in the XACT in-vessel composter (which is 8 feet in diameter by 40-feet long) for five days. Upon discharge, the compost is pathogen-free, weed seed-free and virtually odourless. The next step in the operation is for the compost to be placed in worm bins for further decomposition, using vermicomposting (the process of decomposition of organic waste using worms.)
XACT says the castings (or worm manure) have a high saturation of water soluble nutrients (are readily plant available) and make an excellent organic fertilizer and soil conditioner. The Cancun Palace Resort now uses the castings in their own nursery, gardens, flowerbeds, and for the on-site golf course.
