This April, Perdue AgriBusiness celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Perdue AgriRecycle, the nation’s first and largest commercial facility designed to turn poultry litter into pasteurized organic fertilizer.

According to data provided by the company, over the last decade, the Seaford, Del., facility has worked with the local Delmarva farming community to remove more than 1.5 billion pounds of poultry litter from the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem (more than 55 million lbs. of nitrogen, 28 million lbs. of phosphorus and 41 million lbs. of potassium). The facility remains the only solution operating in the region that measurably moves excess nutrients away from the environmentally-sensitive Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Fertilizer made at the plant, certified by both USDA’s National Organic Program and the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI), is sold through retailers for residential and commercial nationwide. Perdue AgriRecycle represents a $44 million investment for the company.

“It wasn’t designed to be hugely profitable,” says Perdue chairman Jim Perdue. “And to this day is has been, at best, a break-even operation. But more important than profit is the fact that we’re doing something hugely beneficial for the environment.”

For more details about the facility and its impact on the Delmarva Peninsula, see the embedded video below, posted today on YouTube.com by Perdue, in conjunction with Earth Day.

Source: Perdue Farms