The Role of Quality Assurance to safeguard Product Quality · 2013-04-14 · Sustainable recycling of organic resources by producing high quality products for the environmental sound

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Organic Resources and Biological Treatment

The Role of Quality Assurance to

safeguard Product Quality

Dr. Stefanie Siebert, Executive Director of ECN

ECN/ISWA/MoE BG Biowaste-Seminar

“Implementation of Organic Waste Management in Southern and

Eastern European Countries”

17-19 April 2013 – Sofia, Bulgaria

The European Quality Assurance Scheme

for Compost and Digestate


The European Compost Network - Mission

Network for the organic waste

recycling sector in Europe

Promoting sustainable recycling

practices in composting, anaerobic

digestion and other biological

treatment processes of organic

resources

Integrated organic waste recycling

solutions generating high quality

products for the benefit of consumers

and the environment

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The European Compost Network - Vision

Sustainable recycling of organic resources by

producing high quality products for the

environmental sound use on land and/or to

generate renewable energy

Pre-condition for sustainable recycling is the

separate collection of organic wastes

Monitoring of the treatment process and product

quality by independent quality assurance scheme

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Municipal solid waste and Biowaste in EU

Facts

More than half of MSW is landfilled in the majority of EU Countries (2010)

Potentials for bio-waste in EU: 80 million ton per year

Wasted food in EU: 89 million ton

Most of bio-waste is still not separately collected but landfilled, incinerated

Current separate collection and composting/digestion in EU: only 29,5 %

EU Communication on bio-waste management (COM(2010) 235)

Compost and digestate from bio-waste are under-used materials.

Contribution to EU resource efficiency

Improvement of carbon-depleted soils

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Bio-waste recycling as a percentage of municipal waste generation in 32

European Countries, 2001 and 2010

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Source: EEA Report, No. 2/2013 Managing municipal solid waste – a review of

achievements on 32 European countries


Potential of Biodegradable waste in Europe

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10 to 50 M tons of CO2

could be saved

3 to 7 % of agricultural soils could

be improved

64.000 tons P per year could

be recycled from bio-waste

Quelle: Barth et al. 2008

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What is bio-waste?

Bio-waste (WF Directive 2008/98):

Garden and park waste

Food and kitchen waste from households,

restaurants, caterers, retail premises and

comparable waste from food processing

plants

Bio-waste does not include:

forestry/agricultural residue and other

biodegradable materials such as wood,

paper, cardboard, sewage sludge, natural

textiles, etc.

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Biowaste Recycling by Composting in Europe (2009)

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Composting of separately collected bio-wastes of housholds, gardens,

parks and food/feed industry

Ca. 2500 sites of which 40 % treat only green waste

Annual capacity ca. 27 Mio. t

Additionally around 800 small agricultural co-composting plants mainly in

Germany and Austria

Target

Manufacturing of a PRODUCT for fertilisation, soil improvement and humus

management.

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Treatment options - Composting

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Open windrow composting

State of the art for Green waste composting

Capacities: from 200 t/y small scale up to 70.000 t/y

In-vessel composting systems

State of the art for biowaste from households, food/ industry, catering waste

Capacity: often more than > 10,000 t of input materials

Technical operation systems

• tunnel systems

• box/container systems

• windrow systems


Treatment Options – Anaerobic Digestion in EU (2010)

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Anaerobic Digestion of bio-waste from housholds, food/feed industry,

catering waste, agricultural residues and energy crops

195 large AD sites with 5,9 million tons capacity for bio-waste (post

composting is recommended)

Additionally 7500 agricultural digestion and co-digestion sites for

agricultural residues, energy crops & organic waste

In total around 56 millon cbm digestates, 2.5 Gigawatt electricity

Strong support by guaranteed feed-in-tariff 0.1-0.4 CAD/kwh

Target

Production of biogas (80%) or biofuels (Sweden, Switzerland) as renewable

energy & production of organic fertilisers

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EU Policy Strategies

Landfill Directive

End-of-waste criteria for compost and digestate

Review of waste-related targets (2013-2014)

Revision of the EU Fertiliser directive including

organic fertiliser

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Need for EU initiatives

► Recycling / separate collection targets for bio-waste

► Product standards for compost and digestate for a free circulation on the

internal market (End-of-waste criteria for compost and digestate)


EU Policy Strategies – EoW Regulation

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Setting end-of-waste criteria for compost

and digestate but with specific criteria for

each product type (compost / digestate)

Pre-requisite: Input materials from

separately collected bio-waste

Requiring quality assured processing of

separately collected bio-waste feedstocks

according to a set of standards

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Main Markets of Compost in Europe

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Range [n=12 MS] Market range Prices Euro/t

Agriculture 1) 45 - 78% 0 - (28) €

Horticulture 3 - 15% 1 - (29) €

Landscaping 6 - 20% 5 - 30 €

Blends/soil mix 10 - 15% 5 - 15 €

Land reclamation 2 - 10% 1 - 2 €

Hobby gardening 12 - 20% 5 - (320) € 2)

Export 6 - 7% -

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The Need for Quality Products and Quality Assurance

Expectations of Consumers

94 % of the professional compost users want to have:

A standardised and independently supervised high

product quality

Application recommendations for specific uses

Requirements

Input materials of source separated bio-waste

Standardised high quality products

Independently controlled

Traceability

Quality assurance of compost and digestate

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From Waste to Product

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Separate collection of

organic waste

Clean source

Quality Assurance

Control and Certification

Quality Product

Fit for the market

+ =

Waste Product

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Compost Quality Labels in Europe

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Targets of ECN-QAS

Harmonisation of the compost quality and

requirements across Europe

Harmonisation of quality assurance schemes

across Europe

Assistance to build up national quality assurance

schemes

Assurance and monitoring of high quality compost

products in Europe

Promotion of recycling of waste «from waste to

product»

ECN Quality Assurance Scheme (ECN-QAS)

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Content and labels of ECN-QAS

The European Quality Assurance Scheme includes:

Awarding the ECN-QAS Conformity Label to national

quality assurance organisations (NQAO)

Awarding quality labels for composting plants and

compost products

In future:

Awarding quality labels for digestion plants and

digestate products

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Elements of the ECN-QAS

Suitable

input material

Operation

quality (plant)

Product

quality (compost)

Positive-list

Check-list

Product control

ECN-QAS

•certification of conformity

•conformity label Product

use (good practice)

Application

recommendation

National-QAS (Quality label)

•plant certificate

•product certificate

•annual quality report

and

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Requirements for Operational Quality

Process recommendations for composting

55 °C for 14 days in open windrow systems or

65 °C / 60 °C for three days in open windrow / in-vessel systems

Process recommendations for digestion

Proof of digestion process based on process model with critical control

points (CCP), hydrolic retention time, hygienisation record)

External audit of treatment plant

Positive-list of input materials

Check-list for operation control

Independent sampling

Proof of declaration

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Quality Criteria for Compost and Digestate (1)

Quality criteria of the European Quality Assurance Scheme for the

characterising of quality compost

Parameter Assessment

Soil

improvement

Organic matter ≥ 15 %, declaration

Alcaline effective materials (CaO) Declaration

Fertilisation Nutrients (N; P, K) (S, NH4-N, NO3-

N only for digestate)

Declaration

Material

properties

Plant compatibility Benchmark accord. to the test on

germinable plants, declaration

Water content /dry matter content Declaration

Bulk density/volume weight Declaration

Grain size Declaration

pH-value Declaration

Electric conductivity Declaration

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Quality Criteria for Compost and Digestate (2)

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Parameter ECN-QAS Assessment Proposed EoW criteria

Hygienic aspects Salmonellae 0 in 25 g DM 0 in 25 g DM

Undesired

ingredients

Impurities (glass,

metals, plastics) ≤ 0.5 % DM ≤ 0.5 % DM

Germinable seeds

and sprouting

plant parts

≤ 2 per litre ≤ 2 per litre

Harmful matter

Precautional limit

values

Heavy metals mg / kg DM mg / kg DM

Lead (Pb) 130 120

Cadmium (Cd) 1.3 1.5

Chromium (Cr) 60 100

Copper (Cu) 200 (110)3) 100

Nickel (Ni) 40 50

Mercury (Hg) 0.45 1

Zinc (Zn) 600 (300)3) 400

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Independent Product Control and Declaration

Sampling frequency:

For recognition 1- 4 times per year, depending on

the amount of input material

For monitoring the sampling frequency is

calculated on the amount of input material

/10.000 [t] + 1

Analyses results:

Control by an independent quality committee

Certification including product declaration

Application recommendations due to good

fertilisation practice

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Requirements for Certification Bodies

Independent organisation and recognised by legal authorities

Requirements for certification bodies based on EN 45011

Regular audits, independent sampling and product control

Central documentation system

Independent Quality Committee

Approved Quality Assurance Organisations by the

European Quality Assurance Scheme (ECN-QAS)

ARGE Austria BGK Germany VLACO Belgium

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Finalising the European-wide quality assurance

scheme for digestate

Developed by WG2 „Quality Assurance“ and WG4

„Anaerobic Digestion“ and in cooperation with the

European Biogas Association (EBA)

Revision of the ECN-QAS Quality Manual in respect

to end-of-waste criteria for compost and digestate

Further conformity assessments of National Quality

Assurance Schemes

Future Developments for ECN-QAS

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THANK YOU!

European Compost Network ECN e.V.

www.compostnetwork.info

Announcement 26–28 June 2014 Gödöllő, Hungary

ORBIT2014 in cooperation with Szent István University and the

Hungarian Quality Compost Association

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http://www.compostnetwork.info/

Documents

The Role of Quality Assurance to safeguard Product Quality · 2013-04-14 · Sustainable recycling of organic resources by producing high quality products for the environmental sound