Tribally owned and operated compost facility opens southwest of the metro

Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community celebrated its new composting facility, Dakota Prairie Composting, with a grand opening ceremony on Tuesday.  

The tribal nation, located southwest of the Twin Cities, opened their former facility, SMSC Organics Recycling Facility in 2011. The facility aimed to protect and preserve the local environment through recycling organic waste.

Chairman Cole Miller says at the time, there was financial risk as the organics composting business came with uncertainty. 

“We make decisions for our values as a people, and we're always going to do that. We're going to do the right thing for the environment and our neighbors,” said Miller. 

With Dakota Prairie Composting opening its doors, the former facility has closed to the public as operations transition to the new site. 

The new facility is expected to process up to double the amount of organic waste. It will also divert 25,000 tons of food scraps from local landfills each year, turning waste into soil and mulch.   

Miller says the expansion and new location of Dakota Prairie Composting aligns with Dakota values—acting as stewards of the earth.  

“We have endless values. There's a few main ones that we talk about all the time, but that's one for sure, respecting our earth and our environment, because without that, we have nothing,” Miller said.  

According to a press release, Dakota Prairie Composting is one of two large-scale composting facilities in the metro area using machinery to separate compostable organics from non-compostable, such as food packaging.   

“Without that machine, once you have packaged food waste, there's really no way to compost that without having too much contamination and kind of ruining the finished product,” said Dustin Montey, director of Dakota Prairie Composting.  

The new facility will help the state reach its target of recycling 75 percent of metro area waste by 2030.  

“This history-making facility is really going to help our state reduce its reliance on landfills, conserve energy and natural resources and reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions,” said Thad Hellman, the tribal nation’s economic development administrator.

Dakota Prairie Composting has already been permitted to expand in the future with a goal to process three times more material than the former facility.  

“The hope is to leave this world a better place than what we were given. There's a lot of landfills, and we're able to reduce the amount of waste that is going to be in those landfills, and we're going to put it to good use,” said Miller.