I open this topic separate from other discussions on the same topic because the issue is vast and topical. This subject is to be compared with that of moinsdewatt in which he reports that the CEO of Veolia says that: "Waste is the raw material of the XNUMXst century"...
There was the 12 last March in the PACA region a great day of information and meetings on the topic of composting bio-waste of urban origin. An article appeared in the March issue of 13 of the newspaper La Provence under the spring title " Composting flourishes thanks to the humus citizen " https://www.laprovence.com/article/edition-aix-pays-daix/4876562/le-compostage-fleurit-grace-a-lhumus-citoyen.html
I submit the following small text hoping that the question opens a constructive reflection, allows to imagine solutions, and ask more precise figures on the costs of recovery by composting locally. (see the numbers in the next paragraph, in blue).
"The Humus Citizen"
Today urban bio-waste, mainly food and vegetable waste from the population, canteens, restaurants, shops, green space companies and other local actors, are poorly managed and very little valued. There is still no separate sorting at the population level for leftover food, and wood and plants are to be deposited in bulk at the dump which is not very motivating when you have a simple bag of dead leaves, mowing lawn or a faded christmas tree easier to put in the garbage can at the corner of the neighborhood.
So, already at the beginning of the chain, the collection of bio-waste is not yet developed and a large part of this waste ends up in the bins and then in the incineration plant.
Yet the volumes are colossal, non-polluting, and easy enough to recycle by anaerobic digestion, cogeneration or composting and some precursors begin to study the problem.
For simplicity,
- on one side there is industrial who study global and large-scale solutions but with a local impact that is often negative: large truck traffic, pollution, installation of a treatment plant, depletion of local bio-resources to the detriment of other activities,
- on the other, there is some small local actors that offer local solutions and suggest converting these bio-wastes into compost to enrich local soils, especially as an alternative solution for farmers using chemical fertilizers.
It is to study and debate this issue that the 12 last March a day of " Regional Meeting of the PACA Compost Network Has been organized in Aix-en-Provence by some active associations on this subject (GESPER, GERES, Citizen Compost Network, Etc.).
We started to study a collection service of bio-waste, mainly food, on a commune of 10000 inhabitants. It varies greatly by city and region, butADEME assesses that the average amount of bio-waste (vegetable gold) is around 100 kg / year per inhabitant .
A common 10 000 hab. thus produces 1000 Tonnes / year (ie 19 T weekly), and at the end of the chain, one can evaluate a production of compost of 300 tons. It is also accepted that an average of 10 tons of compost per year can be disposed of on one hectare of land. (Quantity depending on the nature of the soil and the type of agricultural production).
The 300 tonnes of compost produced can therefore enrich some 30 hectares of land. (It's the earthworms that would be happy!)
The goal is to find effective solutions to collect some of this waste in order to produce compost that could be used locally by private individuals, shared gardens and local farms.
It is not a question of competing with industrial garbage collection trucks, but of testing local treatment solutions and evaluating the capacities of local self-recycling by composting. But first there is the question of the collection of waste from the population because of the regulation (approval), the organization, the logistics, the Metropolises (who have taken the competence of the waste management), and well sure the human and material cost of such a service, then, the cost of composting waste.
Today it is difficult to find a viable "business model" locally for this service because revenues hardly cover expenses (*), and there are few examples of profitable and autonomous local SMEs acting in this market.
(*) Some unavoidable figures: (to be corrected if you have more precise numbers)
- the collection of 1 ton of bio-waste is billed 100 € on average to producers (restaurant, supermarkets, canteens, etc.)
- 1 tons of bio-waste composted gives about 300 kg of compost, therefore one third of its initial mass (without taking into account negligible "additives" in terms of mass)
- The selling price Professional compost is around 30 € per ton. Do not forget that it takes about 3 T of bio-waste to get 1 T of compost, so in the end 1 T of bio-waste composted yields around 10 €
- You have to add some costs to sell this compost:
- Mandatory chemical analysis of compost to comply with the "standard", ie about 1000 € per year (cost depending on the number of pollutants measured)
- Added carbon for balance the compost in nitrogen / carbon : mainly adding "clean" wood chips.
In the end, collecting 1 tons of bio-waste yields, in the best case, 110 € turnover.
It remains to calculate the human and material costs for the collection of 1 T bio-waste.
For the collection, it can be a voluntary act of the population who would deposit his bio-waste sorted in containers placed in neighborhoods such as paper, cardboard and glass, or come directly to a composting site municipality, or a collection service directly from the inhabitants.
For professionals (restaurants, canteens, shops, etc.) it is a priori a collection service "at the door" of the company.
There are many questions to ask yourself but what do you think and do you have ideas?