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December 2011: Growing Plants, Growing Jobs. Something Beautiful is Growing in the Albuquerque Landfill.

November 2011: Albuquerque Company Turns Landfills into Fields of Beauty.

In the News

New Mexico Business Weekly, February 2012

From New Mexico Business Weekly, February 3, 2012

Growstone Ramps Up Glass Recycling

Growstone turns glass waste into plant growth medium for hydroponic and commercial uses

A homegrown company soon will operate 24/7 at Albuquerque’s Cerro Colorado Landfill to grind and bake scrap glass into an agricultural product. Growstone Inc. makes an environmentally friendly growing medium from glass that reportedly can aerate soil and improve production for hydroponic and commercial growers.

The company, which runs an 8,000-square-foot plant at the Westside landfill, just closed on a $3 million capital raise from private investors and the State Investment Council’s Co-Investment Fund to ramp up operations tenfold over the next six months, said Growstone CEO Mike Langone.

“We’ve increased our processing to about 30 tons per month now, but we plan to reach 300 tons per month, or about 3,600 tons annually, by June,” Langone said. “We’re getting out of startup mode and into full production.”

Jill Holbert, acting director of Albuquerque’s Solid Waste Management Department, said it’s a win-win project for the city and the company. Growstone pays $20 per ton for the glass it receives from the city, which collects about 3,000 tons of scrap glass annually. “There are limited opportunities to recycle glass in New Mexico, because the nearest recycling operation is in Colorado,” Holbert said. “This is a local recycler, so it eliminates shipping and other costs, and we get $20 for every ton.” Holbert said scrap glass is difficult to recycle because there are few commercial end-products. “Some municipalities grind it up for use in road base or in street medians, but there are limited opportunities,” she said. “If [Growstone] can compensate us and create a viable market for the glass, that’s very positive.”

Maximum Yield

Choosing Your Growing Medium by Paula Costa, PhD

There are many different options for growing media available for hydroponics. Most growers, as anyone else involved in some regular activity, tend to develop personal preferences for a particular growing medium and no longer question its suitability for their current growing condition or crop, regarding physical characteristics, efficacy, cost and country of origin, or environmental impacts. Personal preferences aside, there are several key factors that should be taken into consideration before deciding which medium is best for you.

This article lists important factors that should be considered while choosing a growing medium, and explains the reasons for its importance.

The main purpose of a growing medium is to provide physical support and a buffering reservoir for water and nutrients in the root zone while maintaining an adequate supply of oxygen available to the roots. The medium alone is only responsible for providing physical support to the roots. The grower is co-responsible along with the growing medium, for the other functions. This means that crop, nutrition management, and the adequate choice of growing medium for the crop, determines how much water, nutrients and oxygen will be available to the roots and ultimately, how well the roots and plants grow.

Green Fire Times, July 2010

by Seth Roffman

In response to the destructive pumice strip mining taking place in Northern New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains, eco-preneurs Andrew Ungerleider and Gay Dillingham cofounded Earthstone in 1993. Pumice is a volcanic rock used as an ingredient in concrete, as a mild abrasive in cosmetics and cleansers, and to abrade blue jeans, giving them their “stonewashed” look. Ungerleider, working with a ceramicist, found an alternative using recycled glass. It was a cost-effective and superior alternative, which was completely earth-friendly. Utilizing ground glass and carbonate mimicked a volcanic eruption inside the controlled environment of a large kiln.

The result, “Earthstone,” is ultra-lightweight, non-toxic, non-flammable, and an insulative material with excellent compressive strength. It is also anti-microbial and completely sterile. While the initial products were for consumer and industrial cleaning and sanding applications, continued development of the patented technology led to products for horticulture, water filtration and green technology building materials. In scientific field tests at accredited third party facilities around the world, including the University of Arizona, the agricultural products have been shown to exceed the physical characteristics and performance of pumice and other commonly strip mined materials such as perlite, vermiculite, clay and stonewool or basalt.