Yard waste collected from many households in Delta and around the Lower Mainland enjoys a second life right back in the ground where it started.

Many residents leave their grass trimmings and yard waste at the end of their driveway every week without giving a second thought to where it ends up.

Most of the organic waste -- which includes food scraps, yard and wood waste -- in the Lower Mainland gets sent to Fraser Richmond Soil and Fibre, an organic processing facility.

"We look at ourselves as handlers of a commodity or resource rather than looking at it from a waste perspective," said executive vice president Steve Aujla. "So all the materials that we have coming into our facilities from residential curbside programs for green materials, food scraps, urban wood materials, these are all resources so we're manufacturing compost."

The Richmond-based company has been in the composting business since 1993 and is one of the largest commercial composting operations in the region.

In 2009, Metro Vancouver signed a long-term contract with Fraser Richmond Soil and Fibre and the company increased the capacity at its facility in order to accommodate an additional 50,000 tonnes of food waste.

Last year, four Metro Vancouver communities, including Delta, embarked on a food scrap recycling pilot project. The trial ended in March and Delta Mayor Lois Jackson, who is also chair of the Metro Vancouver board, said that while a final report is still in the works, a preliminary one showed the six-month pilot project collected one kilogram of food waste per household every week. The participation rate was between 20 and 30 per cent.

"I think it's going to be a wonderful event when we are able to collect all the food waste," she said. "It really does reduce garbage."

Jackson said a final report to the board is expected by the end of the month.

Fraser Richmond Soil and Fibre receives organic waste from most municipalities in the Lower Mainland. Packer trucks bring material either directly to the facility or to one of several transfer stations around the Lower Mainland.

The material is composted in large batches. The yard waste, food scraps and wood waste are mixed together in piles with larger pieces of already composted material, which are then covered with carbon activated ash from wood sources, which helps to insulate and reduce odour.

"We're not in business if we're producing odour so everything we do revolves around odour control and odour protection and odour mitigation," Aujla said.

"We're trying to create an ideal environment for the organisms for them to thrive off of, so they can multiply quicker so they can ideally break down the stuff in near perfect conditions," he said.

After seven to nine weeks, the material is ready for the next steps.

The batch of compost is sieved to separate the finer material, which is the marketable compost, from the larger pieces, which are then put into the next batch of compost.

That practice also helps speed up the composting process as the composted matter will bring many microorganisms with it to help jumpstart the new batch.

"They all get recycled, they get re-composted again until they break down smaller and smaller and smaller," he said.

Once separated, the finished compost is piled in another area of the site. The product is sold as pure compost and also gets combined with sand to make garden, turf and top dressing soils.

The pure compost as well as the different soils are sold in bulk to homeowners, landscapers, municipalities and other companies that bag and sell them.

The entire process takes between 10 and 12 weeks.

"It's amazing those little creatures what they're doing," Aujla said.

"We take a lot of credit for what's happening here but, to be honest, we're moving things around but the real work, the magic, is being done by the army guys behind the scenes -- the organisms."