COMPOSTING PLANTS: CONCEPTION CRITERIA FOR CONCILIATION OF TREATMENT AND MARKETING REQUIREMENTS

• treatment requirements, mainly determined by the raw waste characteristics
• production requirements, mainly determined by marketing criteria

These requirements are sometimes linked and sometimes independant. For instance, "bagging the compost in 25 liters bags" is a typical independant production requirement but the production of a 60 to 65% dry matter content compost is linked to a treatment requirement which can be expressed in terms of percentage of water loss during the process.

The comparison of both kinds of requirements with the specifics effects of composting leads to the development of a conception methodology in order to verify if composting is an adequate process, and to determine the best fitting composting technology (i.e. turning or forced aeration, nature of the bulking agent …) and also the mechanical treatment steps that must be added prior-to or after composting (for instance: dewatering, grinding, sorting, mixing, …).

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