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With the autumn season in full swing, workers at the Frederick County landfill find themselves knee-deep in leaves and yard waste.

The dead leaves piling up on lawns and curbs around the county are being picked up and dropped off in large quantities at the landfill on Reich's Ford Road in Frederick. It's an annual ritual that keeps landfill workers busy transforming fall yard waste into spring mulch.

The county's Windrow composting operation was recently given a bronze Excellence Award for 2009 by the Solid Waste Association of North America. The association works to develop and encourage economically sound and environmentally friendly ways to dispose of trash. The association considers the county's composting program to be one of the best in the country.

The county has been taking in yard waste at the landfill and turning it into mulch for at least 10 years. In the current fiscal year, it will cost the county $240,000 to compost and mulch yard waste.

Windrow composting is a special system that makes it easier to turn large amounts of yard waste into compost. The county has had this system in place for one year.

Board President Jan H. Gardner (D) applauded the county's Division of Utilities and Solid Waste Management for the award. She said the award was given due to some positive changes in the composting operation.

"We put the composting operation on a now closed rubble fill and that will continue to operate as a natural wood waste recycling operation and we also repaved it using recycled liquid asphalt," she said.

The county's landfill takes in about 40,000 pounds of yard waste and landscape waste annually. A good part of that is dead leaves and tree limbs that workers at the landfill grind into mulch or compost.

Compost is soil that is used to fertilize gardens and landscaping. Mulch is spread on top of the compost and around trees, plants and flowers.

Regulations prohibit the landfill from disposing of yard waste into the regular trash, said Phil Harris, superintendent for the Division of Utilities and Solid Waste Management.

The county is now looking at composting food waste. Harris said during this fiscal year or in fiscal 2011, a pilot program will be started on a limited basis.

The county currently produces two grades of mulch, premium double-ground and basic single-ground. They are both sold to residents and businesses.

The premium is processed and grinded to a fine texture. The basic uses the same materials, but is processed with less grinding.

The premium mulch and compost are each sold for $8.50 per cubic yard or $15 per ton; the basic mulch is sold for $4.60 per cubic yard or $8 per ton.

The compost, typically made up of leaves, grass clippings and fine woody materials, is evaluated and tested by officials at Penn State University, according to the Department of Solid Waste Web site. This is to ensure that the compost is of the highest quality.

Harris said the goal is to make sure residents have a healthy, safe and "earth friendly" composting product.

A full summary of the test results can be found at www.bit.ly/bestcompost.

The most recent test of the compost was done on Nov. 2. The tests included measurements of the nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium levels.

E-mail Sherry Greenfield at sgreenfield@gazette.net.