RESEARCH ON HOUSEHOLD COMPOSTING EQUIPMENT USED FOR PROCESSING ORGANIC WASTE

Organic waste management is a great challenge for authorities in the context of the continuous increase of the quantities annually generated. When is brought to the municipal separation and treatment stations, the organic waste is highly contaminated and difficult to process, therefore one of the best management solutions is considered the treatment at source, using specialized household composting equipment. This paper proposes to analyze the main characteristics of household composters, emphasizing the advantages and disadvantages of this treatment technique

Environmental assessment of home composting

In this study the environmental burdens of home composting were determined using the life cycle assessment (LCA) tool. Data used for the LCA study such as gas emissions (CH₄, N₂O, NH₃ and volatile organic compounds (VOCs)), tools and composter characteristics were obtained from an experimental home composting process of leftovers of raw fruits and vegetables (LRFV). Stable compost with a high content of nitrogen and organic matter was obtained. Neither pathogens nor phytotoxic compounds were found in the final compost. In relation to gaseous emissions, only volatile organic compounds (0.32 kg VOC/Mg LRFV) were detected, even though ammonia, methane and nitrous oxide emissions were also measured. Regarding environmental burdens, the composter was the major contributor to the total home composting process impact for the impact categories of abiotic depletion, ozone layer depletion, and cumulative energy demand. Gaseous emissions (based on our own measurements and literature data) caused the greatest contribution to the acidification, eutrophication, global warming and photochemical oxidation potentials

Sewage sludge management – a case study

Currently, the constantly growing problem in the municipal economy is the management of sewage sludge. According to the law, it is the local government that is responsible for the utilization of sewage sludge and is obliged to select optimal technologies, obtain funds and convince the community of the necessity of its implementation. BIONOR Company has developed an innovative concept for the separation and utilization of sewage sludge in the BIONOR SLUDGE compact installation. This innovative technology is effective from the perspective of reducing the waste amount and can be used to solve the problem of utilization of sewage sludge produced in small, rural wastewater treatment plants. The aim of the article is the characterization of the BIONOR SLUDGE technology, a comparative analysis of costs of sludge disposal using a variety of methods and an indication of the importance of sludge management for the local development. To achieve the goal set in the article, a discriminative method was used - a description of the BIONOR SLUDGE technological line as well as a case study method - a comparative analysis of the costs of operation of BIONOR SLUDGE technological line and the costs of landfilling and utilizing of sewage sludge. The research results confirm that the monthly operational costs of the BIONOR SLUDGE technological line are lower than the costs of monthly landfilling or disposal. For potential municipalities, the introduction of BIONOR innovative technology is economical. Moreover, its usage is currently essential for many municipalities due to the introduction of a ban on landfilling of this type of waste from 1 January 2016. This technology can be used to solve the problem of utilization of sewage sludge generated in small, rural wastewater treatment plants

Proof of concept of high-rate decentralized pre-composting of kitchen waste : optimizing design and operation of a novel drum reactor

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Valorisation of residual biomass generated by the primary sector for a circular bioeconomy

Circular economy aims to create a system that allows optimal reuse of products and materials. The term defines an economy designed to regenerate itself. In a circular economy, there are two material flows: the biological ones, able to be reintegrated into the biosphere, and the technical ones, destined to be enhanced without entering the biosphere. The circular economy is therefore a system in which all activities, starting with extraction and production, are organised so that someone's waste becomes a resource for someone else, i.e. an economic system planned to reuse materials in subsequent production cycles, minimising waste. In the linear economy, on the other hand, once consumption is over, the product cycle ends and it becomes waste, forcing the economic chain to continuously repeat the same pattern: extraction, production, consumption, disposal. In this context, the contribution provided by the valorisation of residual biomass and municipal waste is fundamental for the production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into new value-added products. This is the background to the thesis work which has been divided into three main parts. After an in-depth study on the circular economy concept, the differences and points of contact with the bioeconomy concept and above all the opportunities linked to it, in collaboration with University of Basilicata (Scientific part of the project) a general review was carried out. This review has considered the residual biomasses coming from the various agricultural activities (mowings and pruning by-products), from zootechnical activities (sludge deriving from animal manure, etc.), from agro-food activities (deriving from olive, wine, dairy, cereal processing, etc.) and from forestry activities (from forest cutting and use, forest cleaning, etc.) that are practised in the Basilicata region. Subsequently, a focus and a cognitive survey on the by-products generated by the wine sector in the Basilicata region, on their reuse state of the art and on their possible valorisation forms with particular attention to restoring soil fertility with a view to the circular economy, was carried out. The industrial part of the project, instead, was carried out with the collaboration of Innova - Consorzio per l'Informatica e la Telematica srl. After a general review of the waste legislation in the Basilicata region –especially the differences between waste and by-products - the problems related to the state of the art concerning their production, management and disposal, the phD thesis work has focused on the feasibility study (economic and environmental) of new models for the management, treatment and valorisation of organic waste flows (from separate collection) and agricultural by-products (especially those coming from wine supply chain) from the perspective of the circular economy as an alternative to the current models based on the linear economy. These new governance models called "proximity composting" and “home composting”, alternative and more sustainable than the current one, on the other hand aim at a more sustainable management of these flows based on their “zero-kilometers treatment”. On the other hand, they aim to empower the communities that become an active part of the process: citizens are directly involved and partially autonomous in the management of their municipality waste. Specifically, starting from a basic organisational idea, an in-depth study on its real feasibility was carried out, based on an integrated planning of the different aspects involved in the elaboration of the models themselves. Subsequently, the discussion focused on IoT (Internet of Things) technologies applied to the proposed models with a dual purpose: remote control and monitoring in Near Real Time of each phase of the process: the flows collection, the transport, the final destination and the variation of the various parameters during the proposed composting process; possibility of implementing the "punctual tax" in accordance with the Ministerial Decree on the Environment of April 20, 2017. The proposed models, alternatives to the current one - composting in very distant industrial plants - which is unsustainable, very expensive and disadvantageous, aim first of all to improve separate collection in each municipality, and consequently to reduce the amount of organic waste to be treated, but also to give wine by-products a more sustainable second life, in the context of the circular economy. Finally, in cooperation with the international partner of the project, the Energy Agency of Plovdiv (EAP), after studying the state of the art regarding the production, management and treatment of municipal waste in the city of Plovdiv, the related problems and possible future challenges, the home composting model, hypothesised for the Basilicata Region, has been adapted to this city. As in the case of the Basilicata region, the model has been planned and studied from an economic and environmental point of view, and its feasibility has confirmed that it could be a good alternative to the current one, which does not provide for separate collection, but directly for the disposal of urban waste in landfills

Integration of Food Waste Composting and Vegetable Gardens in a University Campus

Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG[Abstract] Local composting (household, community and small scale applications) is considered a sustainable option for bio-waste recovery and is receiving increasing demand from society. Higher education institutions are no exception, but detailed and comprehensive long-term studies on composting programs on university campuses are lacking. The local composting program of the University of A Coruña (UDC) offers a decentralized service for the treatment of food waste from 11 university canteens using static and dynamic composters located in 9 different composting areas. Considering the three pillars of sustainability, this work describes the characteristics of the different composting technologies used and their investment and operational costs, the routine monitoring process and product quality, the integration of the composting systems as living labs for biotechnology and environmental engineering courses, and the use of compost in the university vegetable gardens. The agents involved in the project are the canteen staff, the university gardening company, external composting operators, university researchers and teachers, sustainability scholarship students and volunteer people. Organic waste is usually delivered directly by canteen staff to composters. The gardening service provides green waste from UDC campus (crushed pruning) that is used as bulking material. The monitoring and maintenance of the composting areas is currently in charge of external staff provided by a local NGO dedicated to cooperation and job reintegration of the unemployed. The service also allows the incorporation of volunteers and scholarship students as operators and process monitoring supervisors. The main result of this project was the prevention of a large amount of waste that did not require collection and transportation, or disposal or incineration. This is being done in an economically sustainable way, as decentralized composting costs have been lower than the average costs of municipal solid waste treatment in the region. The lower investment costs of static composters largely offset the higher labour costs and result in lower overall costs than those of the dynamic composter. The dissemination of composting practice to society was another important outcome of the project

Environmental Impacts of and Material Recovery from Biodegradable Waste

The environmental impact of biodegradable waste has resulted in legislative drivers that are designed primarily to reduce the impacts arising from (a) pathogens in the waste, (b) gaseous emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, and (c) the effects of biodegradation in landfill sites on leachates to groundwater. These drivers are considered in this research under three applications: (i) the development of a sustainable technology for the treatment of food wastes to obtain a high quality compost product in a closed-loop situation within a single premises, (ii) the development of a programme to assess the environmental impacts and carbon footprints of food waste treatment options and of other secondary recovery processes, and (iii) the development of a methodology to assess the effects of landfill leachate on groundwaters resulting from deleterious landfill practices and management. Technology to overcome the challenges associated with the conversion of food waste to compost has been developed. The resulting in-vessel composting process produces a high quality compost that meets the highest BSI PAS 100 standard. The key factors in the methodology are the rapid transfer of food waste from the kitchen to composter, the efficient maceration and dewatering of the feedstock, optimisation of the C:N ratio, and the achievement of temperatures high enough to destroy pathogens. The fundamentals of the concept of benchmarking was developed in this work as part of a study to permit the determination of carbon dioxide savings in secondary metal recovery, and extended to carbon footprinting of alternative processes to landfill of food waste to permit a comparison of alternative treatments of food waste. The in-vessel composting methodology described in this work compares favourably with the alternative methods of food waste treatment. A computer software programme, HEDAS, for the statistical analysis of landfill monitoring data to predict borehole behaviour, has been developed. The programme permits assessment of the reliability of the data and ultimately determines the extent of groundwater contamination. In the course of the development of the software, a novel concept was used to determine the best applicable experimental standard deviation (BAESD) to be used to assess the reliability of individual borehole and analyte data. The BAESD is used with the measured standard deviations for individual boreholes and analytes to produce a reliability rating for the individual borehole and analyte. These ratings effectively measure the analytical data against the most stable boreholes at the site and provide viable indicators of step changes in concentration or other anomalies. HEDAS was developed using historical data from the UK Environment Agency’s Thames region, and is now used as their standard for assessing monitored data at landfill sites. The application of HEDAS has now been extended from groundwater and leachate analysis to landfill gas emissions

THE EXISTENCE OF SUSTAINABLE SETTLEMENT IN SURABAYA AS AN ATTEMPT TO REALIZE ECO CITY

The existence of kampungs or township settlements in Surabaya is very essential to the city development seen from the historical aspect of Surabaya which grew from the development of township settlements. Therefore the issue of sustainable develop-ment to create a good living environment can be applied to the settlements sector in Surabaya in order to turn Surabaya into an ecological city, so that the efforts of citi-zens in Surabaya in the eco kampung activities can make a significant contribution in the realization of the ecological city. Kampung Kertajaya Surabaya is one of the township settlements in Surabaya that applies sustainable development with the coo-peration of the residents and City Government