Living Earth Technology Company - Dallas, TX

Living Earth Technology Company is the largest recycler of green waste and the largest producer of mulch and compost in the state of Texas.  They have 19 locations throughout the state mostly centered around the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area and the Houston area. 

They are a producer of several types of mulch and custom mixed planting and landscaping materials.  They sell material in bulk and pre-packaged material in bags.  They own three bagging plants throughout Texas.  Their Lancaster, TX facility produces 250 pallets of bagged material per day.  Each pallet holds 70 bags of bedding materials.  In the spring planting season they will ship 35 truck loads of material per with each truck carring 18 pallets.  The largest re-sellers of bagged material are Kroger and Alberson's grocery stores.

Their California Crossing location in Dallas has a drive up window where they process the selling of landscaping materials and collect tipping fees for the disposal of raw materials to be chipped into mulch or composted.

Living Earth also sell convenience items such as Moss Stones as seen here.

Colorado River Rock...

various types of gravel...

and cut stone to name a few.

These are products that they purchase from suppiers all over the country and resell to their customers.

Here an Asplund truck deposits green waste from trees they have trimmed.

Asplund is the company with a fleet of big orange trucks and wood chippers that clear tree limbs around power lines for the electrical companies.  They are charged a "tipping" fee to dispose of their waste with Living Earth but much less than they would pay at a landfill.  The added benefit is material instead of going into the landfill as waste it becomes the source material for mulch and compost.  This way the green waste is saved from the landfill and become food or other plants or Kiddie Kushion for children's playgrounds.

Here are examples of a black color mulch and natural color mulch made from green waste.  These products are typically made from "native" trees but may be made from discarded shipping pallets as well.  The color is created by an added pigment.  In earlier times this material would be taking up space in a landfill.  Now Living Earth uses it as an accent material for landscaping.

Here's a close-up of Red Oxide color decorative mulch.








This is the machine that grinds the brush, tree limb and trunk in mulch. Some are ground only once while others will be processed a second time and are refered to as "regrind".

A pile of discarded pallets await HOGZILLA, Living Earth's diesel power wood grinder.  These pallets are ground down to become fuel wood for a sawmill in East Texas that provides Living Earth with bark mulch.  Bark mulch is historically a waste by-product of the lumber, and paper pulp mill industry.  The mills will bring a load of tree bark mulch to Living Earth, unload it, and take bake a load of ground up pallet fuel wood to power the mill.  This eliminates two waste streams and provides a trucking company a back-haul so their truck is not wasting fuel by traveling empty.  The grinding machine has a magnet on it that removes the nails and staples that are used to hold the pallets together during the grinding process.  They are collected in a dumpster and then sold to a local scrap metal dealer.  So that make three waste streams that are diverted from the landfill!

A typical pile of green waste.  It is composed of tree and brush trimmings, waste material from landscaping contractors and tree trimming services.  At Living Earth it becomes a supply source for landscaping material.

Navarro Pecan Company in Navarro County about 50 miles south of Dallas is one of the largest pecan shellers in the nation with an annual shelling capacity of 50 million pounds of in-shell pecans.  What do they do with all those pecan shells.  In stead of disposing of them in a landfill as waste they bring to Living Earth where it is used as bedding material in landscaping.  General Manager, Paul Tomaso said that this was the product he used in his personal gardens.

Del Monte has a local plant that processes and packages fresh fruits and vegetables.  An enormous amount of this produce is deemed unacceptable to sell for consumption and would typically go to the landfill.  This becomes a nitrogen rich component for Living Earth to use in the production of organic compost.  The fresh produce cutting companies may bring as much as 30 cubic yards of tomatoes to Living Earth each day.  And that's not all they bring.

Mr. Tomaso explained to us that soil is made up of three main components: Sand, clay and silt with sand being the larges and silk the smallest particle.  Organic material such as compost helps the soil maintain equilibrium.  Organic compost also acts as a slow release fertilizer and is not salt-based like conventional synthetic fertilizers.  Synthetic fertilzers also hurt natural micro-organisms that naturally exist in the soil and are beneficial.

 The 1 cubic yard capacity bucket on this front-end loader is carrying a load of lettuce, tomatoes, pineapple tops, and various other vegetable matter up to the top of Living Earth's mountain of compost material.  Landscaping contractors will bring in grass clippings or collected leaves (a high carbon source for compost), once again diverting a waste stream from the landfill and turning into organic compost and soil amendments.

The loader is preparing to dump it's load of vegetable matter at the top of the compost heap.

Living Earth also creates custom blends of materials.  This machine helps mix the material. 

After the loader finished carrying discarded produce scraps to the top of the compost heap it pulled around to the back where the compost sifter was running and turning out fresh organic compost.