As you learned in part 2 the most preferable treatment option for organic waste is to collect it seperately and than either treat it aerobically (with elemental oxygen) or anerobically (without elemental oxgen) in order to make use of the nutrients inside as a fertiliser and/or generate energy. A combination of both treatment forms is also possible. 

Find out more about aerobic and anerobic treatment in the next sections. 

3.1 Aerobic Treatment (Composting)

Composting describes a controlled process, where microorganisms use molecular oxygen to decompose organic matter into a humuslike product while they produce energy in form of heat. 

Look at the slides below to learn more about the composting process and different compsosting facility types. Afterwards try answering the quiz on the ideal parameters needed for rapid composting. 

Quiz time - Which parameters are ideal for a quick composting process? 

A good and usable compost can only be produced out of separately collected organic wastes. Please collect the right fractions.

The anerobic degradation of organic waste can be described through four distinct steps: Hydrolysis, Acidogenisis, Acetogenesis, Methanogenesis

These steps are described in the Hot-spot-Graphik below.

The technology used to utilised the above described process to win biogas is shown below.

This project “German MENA University Network for Waste Management and Circular Economy”, implemented by the University Rostock (UR), Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) and University of Technology Dresden (TUD), Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), Constantine university 3 Algeria, Ain Shams University Egypt and Cadi Ayyad University Morocco is funded by the PREVENT Waste Alliance, an initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The contents of the Wastepedia course are the sole responsibility of German-MENA University Network and do not necessarily reflect the positions of all PREVENT Waste Alliance members or official policy positions of the governments involved. More information: https://prevent-waste.net/en/.

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