Services

Products and Services

Our products and services offer needed solutions to municipalities and the market for organic soil enhancement products. Mid-Atlantic Recycling will be the market leader as the first company in the region to collect, compost, and recycle human waste sludge for use as a fertilizer and a soil enhancer. Mid-Atlantic Recycling realizes that consumers today are more conscious of recycling and of their environment. Because of this trend, there is a growing trend among consumers to move away from traditional chemical based fertilizers more natural organic materials.

We will offer one major service and major product. Our major service will be to offer municipalities an alternative means for disposing of human waste sludges generated in waste treatment plants. Our major product will be recycled (composted) human waste sludge for use as a fertilizer.

A sample of our compost has been analyzed by the West Virginia University Agricultural Service Laboratory. A copy of their analysis is attached to this business plan; this analysis verifies the very high quality of the material we will produce. According to West Virginia University, this material may qualify as a fertilizer in which case the material's value is much higher than if it is considered a compost.

Product and Service Description

Nationwide, many landfills are closing or exhausting their remaining capacity. However, due to environmental restrictions, zoning laws, and other regulatory and bureaucratic delays, very few new landfills are opening to offset the looming space crisis. Meanwhile municipal waste, including human waste sludge, continues to flow in greater volume. Handling their waste streams has become a major problem for most municipalities. With more waste created daily, landfills nationwide are rapidly facing a capacity crisis.

In West Virginia this situation has been made even more critical due to recent passage of legislation requiring that by 2008 only landfills lined with a very heavy duty liner will be able to accept human waste sludge. Thus, in the not too distant future, most landfills now accepting the sludge will no longer be able to accept it. Additionally, it will be very impractical, and cost prohibitive, to install the required liner in working landfills. Therefore, options for disposing of human waste sludge are about to become very, very limited, which means disposal will become much, much more costly.

Considering this environment, we will offer municipalities an extremely valuable service -- an alternative means for disposal of their human waste sludge. Municipalities currently pay landfills a "tipping" fee to dispose of their waste. The tipping fee is typically $15 to $50 per ton; the average tipping fee in West Virginia is $32 per ton. As noted above, in the near future many landfills will stop receiving human waste sludge and prices are expected to increase dramatically due to simple supply and demand. Not only will tipping fees increase, but as municipalities have to go farther and farther afield to find accommodating landfills, transportation costs for the waste will also increase. We will help them solve this problem, and ultimately save them, and their tax payers, money. We will place skid boxes at their waste treatment plants and remove the sludge for them. The tipping fee, a fee for skid box rental, and a fee for picking up and returning the skid boxes will be paid to Mid-Atlantic Recycling by the municipalities. This will be done at a price competitive with or lower than what they are now paying.

Mid-Atlantic Recycling will receive the sludge and recycle it using an organic composter. This will be a 3-day recycling process. At the end of the three days, the human waste sludge will be converted to a compost material safe for use in agricultural applications. Potential customers include turf farms, fertilizer manufacturers, golf courses, nurseries, landscapers, Government agencies, and homeowners.

Competitive Comparison

The Mid-Atlantic Recycling business model adds great value through both our service and our product.

Our service, accepting human waste sludge from municipalities, partially relieves the burden on rapidly filling landfills, and provides an alternative disposal channel to municipalities facing a legislative deadline which threatens to cut off their traditional means of disposing of the waste.  

As noted earlier, there is a trend in the market away from chemical fertilizers toward more natural organic soil enhancements. Our product, composted human sludge, responds to this market trend. Compost has many advantages over traditional fertilizer. Traditional chemical fertilizer sells for approximately $250 per ton while our compost will be priced at around $50-$100 per ton. Our compost is similar to fertilizers; however, it reacts differently from most fertilizers. Compost releases nutrients over a long period of time, on average two to three months. The chemical reaction in present fertilizers takes place immediately and usually lasts no longer than three to four weeks. After three to four weeks, the customer may have to buy more fertilizer, costing both time and money. On golf courses, when chemical fertilizer is applied, golf must cease for the day; however, when compost is applied, golf can continue uninterrupted. As demonstrated, compost has many advantages over traditional fertilizers.

Our human sludge compost also has distinct advantages over other types of composts as well. To be a viable, lucrative, growing business, we must be a reliable source of compost supply to our customers. To serve the market and grow in it availability of our product cannot be intermittent or "hit and miss." We must be able to meet the demand every time within a reasonable delivery time. By the inherent nature of the business, human waste sludge will always be available for composting  in large, dependable quantities, at one or a few locations, at a constant/stable quality and at a stable cost. Other composts cannot compete with this in that similar quantities are not available from so few locations which increases their labor and transportation costs related to collection. Additionally, if collection is from farms, they may use horse manure, poultry manure, cow manure, hog manure, etc. in varying quantities over time. This inherently will result in a product that constantly changes in content and quality. In fact customers view other composts as being of unpredictable availability and unpredictable quality. Mid-Atlantic Recycling's compost will not have these deficiencies and will be viewed as the superior compost product.

In addition to the above, the following paragraphs describe federal small business programs that Mid-Atlantic Recycling intends to take advantage of. These programs are available to us due to our location and the status of our owner as a Native American (minority). Mid-Atlantic Recycling will leverage these programs to ensure entry to the federal market. This information was taken from federal government Internet sites.

The Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) program: Firms in this program have the opportunity to negotiate sole source contracts and participate in restricted competition limited to HUBZone firms. Also, HUBZone firms are allowed a ten percent price evaluation preference in full and open competition. In such cases, the price offered by a HUBZone firm will be determined lower than the price offered by a non-HUBZone firm as long as the HUBZone firm's price is not more than 10% higher than the price offered by the otherwise lowest, responsive offeror. Companies can apply on-line at SBA’s website for expedited HUBZone program admission.  According to research done by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, government entities are the largest single buyer of compost products.

Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) program: This program offers several important incentives:

1.       Price evaluation adjustment: qualified SDBs receive a price evaluation adjustment of up to 10 percent on procurements where mandated by regulation. The price evaluation adjustment for SDBs bidding as primes became effective October 1, 1998. Regulations mandate this approach in competitive acquisitions over the simplified acquisition threshold (usually $100,000) where the SIC Code for the prime contract is authorized by U.S. Department of Commerce benchmarks. The price evaluation adjustment does not apply to 8(a) acquisitions and small business set-asides. 

2.       Evaluation factor: qualified prime contractors can receive a credit when using SDBs as subcontractors. This evaluation factor for SDB participation became effective January 1, 1999. The incentive applies only to competitive negotiated acquisitions over $500,000, or $1,000,000 in construction. Firms certified by the SBA as SDBs remain on the list of SDB-certified firms for a period of three years. 

The 8(a) Program: SBA’s 8(a) program, named for a section of the Small Business Act, is a business development initiative that helps socially and economically disadvantaged Americans gain access to economic opportunity.

1. Participants can receive sole-source contracts, up to a ceiling of $3 million for services. While SBA helps 8(a) firms build their competitive and institutional know-how, the agency also encourages them to participate in competitive acquisitions. 
2. Federal acquisition policies encourage federal agencies to award a certain percentage of their contracts to SDBs. To speed up the award process, the SBA has signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with 25 federal agencies allowing them to contract directly with certified 8(a) firms. 
3. Recent changes permit 8(a) firms to form joint ventures and teams to bid on contracts. This enhances the ability of 8(a) firms to perform larger prime contracts and overcome the effects of contract bundling, the combining of two or more contracts together into one large contract. 

4.       Mid-Atlantic's owner is a Native American which will qualify him to participate in the SDB and 8(a) programs. 

5.       The federal market is particularly appealing because the need for compost and fertilizer materials in highway and other federal construction projects is extremely large.

6.       3.3 Sales Literature

7.       We will prepare a general brochure with information and maps about Mid-Atlantic Recycling's products and services for dissemination to potential customers, including both municipalities and compost users. Sales personnel will visit each potential customer with pricing, maps, and reminders of the facility. Sales literature will be very important, with the need to establish a high-quality look and feel in order to create a trusting sense of professionalism.

 Technology

Composting is biological decomposition of organic materials. Bacteria, fungi, protozoans, insects, worms and other organisms typically play a part in the decomposition process. Composting is nature’s means of recycling. It will turn grass clipping, leaves, vegetables, fruit and other organic materials into a very beneficial soil amendment. Composting is also an effective means of reducing the amount of solid wastes going into our nation’s landfills. Mid-Atlantic Recycling's process will greatly speed up the natural composting process. 

As briefly described above, the human waste sludge used in Mid-Atlantic Recycling's process will be picked up from municipalities in skid boxes provided by Mid-Atlantic Recycling. Accepting the waste, rental of the boxes, and transportation will all be sold as a service to the municipalities. 

Upon arrival at our recycling facility, the sludge will be placed into one of six organic in-vessel digesters. These vessels are proven for composting various types of animal manure. In addition, Mid-Atlantic Recycling's president, Oliver Pyne, has tested the unit' ability to successfully compost human waste. The material compost produced was tested by the equipment manufacturer (CV Organics, Inc. of White Springs, TN) and found to be a high quality compost. Additionally, the compost material was recently tested by West Virginia University Agricultural Service Laboratory and found to be an exceptional soil amendment. 

These recycling/composting units work as follows. The unit is 50 feet long. The sludge is placed into one end of the unit. To make compost, additional dry fibrous material such as sawdust, wood chips,  or bark must be added. We will acquire a steady supply of these from International Paper Company.

The unit turns slowly, making four revolutions per hour, to ensure that adequate oxygen gets to all of the composting material. Also, the unit is set on a very slight, 2 degree, angle so that as the unit turns, the material slowly migrates toward the opposite end of the unit. During the composting process, the material heats up (due to the natural reaction) to temperatures of approximately 140 degrees Farenheit; this kills any harmful bacteria in the composting material. Temperature can be controlled to ensure optimum composting environment. Also, the moisture levels can be controlled to ensure optimum composting. After three days, the material has reached the opposite end of the unit where it is removed. 

Advantages of this recycling/composting method are as follows:

• Recycling is completed rapidly in three days. Other methods take 90 plus days.
• Waste materials in the unit are isolated from the environment.
• The manager has precise control of moisture, temperature, and aeration during the process to ensure the most efficient composting possible.
• In-vessel composting can maintain a rapid decomposition process year-round regardless of external ambient conditions.  The material can be used for improvement of organic matter content and fertility of soil. 

Future Products and Services

In the future, Mid-Atlantic Recycling plans to expand by opening additional recycling facilities throughout West Virginia and beyond. We ultimately intend to become the method of choice for disposal of human sludges.