Successful pilot project - compostable ECOVIO® bio-waste bags for separate organic waste collection

BASF, Veolia Environmental Services, GML Abfallwirtschaftsgesellschaft, and the waste management service of the district of Bad Dürkheim, Germany conducted a three-month pilot project to ascertain whether ecovio® FS organic waste bags are suitable for residents’ everyday use for organic waste collection. Furthermore the behavior of the bags was examined on an industrial scale in the composting plant Grünstadt - operated by the plant manager Veolia on behalf of the owner GML.

Further Author:
F. Schwarz - Veolia Environmental Services

Almost 65.000 households in the municipality Bad Dürkheim were included in this trial. IBK-solutions, a consultant engineer office, was responsible for the project supervision. At the households the compostable waste bags were used for convenient, more hygienic separate organic waste collection. The filled bags were discarded in the regular organic waste bins and transported to the composting plant. These bags do not have to be separated out at the composting plant and together with the organic waste they can be further processed into compost. The degradation behavior of ecovio® organic waste bags was studied under realistic technical conditions. For this purpose, two test heaps with ecovio® organic waste bags were compared to a reference heap without films made of this biodegradable material. The experiment was carried out at the organic composting plant in Grünstadt, which is authorized for a capacity of 35,000 Mg of organic waste per year and 5,000 Mg of plant cuttings per year. The retention time in the compost pile was 3-4 weeks (3 weeks for the organic waste added last to the respective heap) for both test and the reference heaps. A visual inspection during the emptying procedure ascertained that about 70% to 80% of the ecovio® waste bags had already been torn open when they came out of the collection vehicles because of the high mechanical stress to which they were subjected there (pressing and rolling). The ecovio® organic waste bags did not cause any clogging or tangling in the low-speed grinder. The bags were torn open and shredded into flat films. The decomposition process was not affected by the ecovio® organic waste bags. The temperature curve and the moisture content in the test heaps containing the bags made of the biodegradable material matched the values of the reference heap. No remnants of ecovio® film were found during manual sorting of the material and visual inspection after 21 days, corresponding to the end of the decomposition period. Following air separation and fine screening, only a few remnants of organic waste bags made of ecovio® were found in the reject. These were negligible in relation to the total volume of compostable ecovio® film material in the heap corresponding to a virtually 100% degradation. An increased use of bags made of standard plastics was not observed after the pilot study. Additionally the long time stability of the organic waste bags was tested. After 2 weeks beyond the normal storage time in the household, no changes occurred in the strength of the organic waste bags. The tear strength of these bags was comparable to that of the original bags.



Copyright: © European Compost Network ECN e.V.
Quelle: Orbit 2012 (Juni 2012)
Seiten: 6
Preis: € 6,00
Autor: Dr. Thomas Grommes
Dipl. Ing. Georg Kosak
Dr. Carsten Sinkel
 
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