Municipalities are expected to provide solid waste management to their inhabitants, funded by tax revenue or/and waste treatment fees. In many low and middle income countries, municipalities however struggle to provide an adequate level of service; in such places the informal sector plays a major role in the collection and treatment of solid waste. In contrast to the plastic and metal fraction, the organic fraction is not managed by the informal sector, primarily because it has low or no financial value and treatment would cost more than the possible revenue. If the organic fraction could be converted to valuable products, the treatment could bear its own cost and this could act as an incentive to collect and treat this fraction.
In this study we evaluated and compared the potential product value generated through four treatment strategies treating food waste and faeces: thermophilic composting (the most common biological treatment globally), black soldier fly larvae composting (BSF treatment), anaerobic digestion (AD) and BSF followed by AD. If you are interested to find out which treatment that yields the highest value products, read the full article published in GCB Bioenergy:
Lalander, C., Nordberg, Å., & Vinnerås, B. A comparison in product‐value potential in four treatment strategies for food waste and faeces–assessing composting, fly larvae composting and anaerobic digestion. GCB Bioenergy.
Contact: Cecilia Lalander
Post published by Prithvi Simha