What Is a WINR Center? Completing the Nutrient Cycle for America

WINR stands for Waste Into Nutrient Recovery, and this is what a WINR Center is and why I built one. We harvest nutrients out of the soil, run them through processing and onto a plate, and everything a food processor cannot use goes to the landfill. Then we call other countries and buy the phosphorus and potassium we just buried. We broke the cycle. This facility puts it back together. I walk through the site near Woodbine, Iowa and explain how it works. Food-processing byproducts, cardboard and a small share of cattle manure, mixed to a recipe and finished in aeration barns in 21 days instead of 90. I get into what that means for fertilizer prices, for water quality, and for the jobs and tax base in a rural county. And I answer the question every food processor asks me: why send a waste stream here instead of to the landfill. Then I sit down with Mike Sexton, Iowa State Director of USDA Rural Development. USDA backed this facility with a $3.9 million grant because the country got away from making its own fertilizer. I pitch him a nutrient recovery credit for generators who keep their organic waste out of the landfill. His answer is in the video. Become a Nutrient Recovery Partner. Send your organic waste streams to a WINR Center. https://winrcenter.com