ARLnow.com12%
Arlington plans to turn poop into consumer-grade fertilizer by 2031 4%
By Dan Egitto14%
7/31/2026, 5:30:16 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 2 faulty reasoning types, including Anchoring Bias, with Optimism Bias as the most egregious example at 16.8% saturation with 56 hits. Analysis detected 78 faulty-reasoning hits from 333 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 15.2% and a BS Rank of 4% (22,053 of 22,831 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 96.60% of the article peer group.
Arlington County is just a few years out from realizing its dream of turning residents’ solid waste into natural gas and consumer-grade fertilizer.
Arlington Re-Gen, a long-awaited upgrade to the county’s wastewater treatment process, is expected to begin producing a product known as “Class A biosolids” by late 2030 or early 2031 — providing more opportunities for the second life of Arlington residents’ No.
2.
Arlington’s product will be similar to the “Bloom” compost alternative produced in D.C., which the District sells throughout the region as fertilizer.
Most of Arlington’s biosolids will be “beneficially reused through permitted land application,” Katie O’Brien, a spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Services, told ARLnow.
“While Arlington County does not currently anticipate selling Class A biosolids directly to consumers, we will be undertaking a biosolids marketing study and will look for opportunities to distribute Class A biosolids to local residents and businesses, as well as opportunities for co-marketing with other similar products in the region,” O’Brien said.
Arlington’s Water Pollution Control Plant currently produces Class B biosolids that are applied in permitted sites throughout rural Virginia.
After the upgrades, the plant is expected to pump out about 19,000 wet tons of Class A biosolids per year.
“Class A biosolids undergo a higher level of treatment than the County’s current Class B biosolids, allowing for broader beneficial reuse under applicable regulations,” O’Brien said.
Renovations at the wastewater plant, which have a price tag of about $200 million, will also improve the processing of biogas, a byproduct of the wastewater treatment process.
Biogas will be converted into renewable natural gas that will be injected into the Washington Gas pipeline.
The county expects to produce about 240 standard cubic feet per minute of natural gas, an energy equivalent of about 13.4 million British thermal units per hour.
The Re-Gen project as a whole is expected to reduce the county’s overall carbon footprint by about 5,700 tons per year, O’Brien said.
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