Connecticut Green Bank Financing Supports Circular Services Expansion of Organics Recovery

The Connecticut Green Bank has put $5.05 million toward expanding the Southington Campus, a food and yard waste recycling facility formerly known as Quantum Biopower. The site runs an anaerobic digester, a system that breaks down organic waste and captures the gas it releases to generate electricity. The new money will pay for equipment to recover fertilizer from that digester process, an automated bagging line for finished compost, soil, and mulch, and machinery that can strip packaging off food waste so more of it can be processed instead of thrown away.

The Southington facility already produces about 1.2 megawatts of renewable power, enough to supply more than 800 homes plus Southington's fire station, wastewater plant, and other municipal buildings. It's described as the longest continuously operating anaerobic digester in North America, and the broader site is permitted to handle more than 100,000 tons of organic material a year. This expansion is meant to let it process more food scraps from homes, businesses, and towns across the state.

For most homeowners, this isn't a program to sign up for — it's infrastructure news. But it matters if your town offers food scrap collection or curbside composting, since facilities like this one are where that material actually gets turned into energy and products like bagged soil and mulch you might see at a garden store. It's also a sign Connecticut is continuing to invest in keeping organic waste out of landfills and turning it into local power and materials instead.