THE COMPOSTING OF BARK WITH SOY SCRAP SLUDGE.

In our laboratory trials are set up to use soy scrap sludge as a nitrogen source in composting experiments with bark which acts as a carbon source. This soy scrap sludge cames from the food processing industry and contains between 5 and 8 % of total nitrogen calculated on dry material.

The advantage of this soy scrap sludge is also that high amounts of moisture is present. By mixing together bark and soy scrap sludge an optimal moisture content for composting is obtained. To have a good mixture of both products a special manure spreader is used. At the same time the coarse particles in the bark are broken so that at the end of the composting period a compost is obtained which can be used as horticultural substrate without further manipulation.

The valorization of this mixture is carried out in 4 steps:

1. Determination of the chemical and physical properties of both wastes
2. Optimization of the mixture by means of a laboratory composting simulator
3. Composting on industrial scale
4. Growing experiments with ripe compost

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