The 2019 Study Tour organised by Italy's ECN member CIC (the Italian Biogas and Composting Organisation) in cooperation with the ISWA WG on BTW, ECN and other Italian organisation was completed successfully on Oct 4th.
The tour started with a half-day seminar on bio-waste management demonstrating different ways how to collect bio-waste from households. The seminar was opened by the ISWA Working Group Chair on Biological Treatment of Waste Marco Ricci.
Stefanie Siebert, Executive Director of the European Compost Network, welcomed the participants by giving an overview about biowaste management in Europe and introducing the European policy developments on biowaste in the context of the EU Circular Economy package.
In a four-days journey through Italy (from Milan to Verona, heading versus Venice and back) participants could witness:
- how foodwaste is successfully collected separately in metropolitan Cities and small communities, reaching large diversion and good quality
- how modern waste composition analysis are performed by the Italian Biogas and Composting analysis so to monitor the quality of incoming biowaste into AD and Composting facilities
- how composting and biogas works in transforming biowaste into quality compost and biogas (a renewable, CO2 neutral fuel)
- the new trends in biogas production by visiting the 1st italian facility producing biomethane and stripping CO2 that is reaching food&drink grade quality andmeeting with selected technology providers that realise facilities to clean biogas and/or to upgrade it into biomethane by diverting CO2 from being lost into the atmosphere.
The tour allowed participants also to visit different Italian towns such as Milan, Lecco, Verona and Bergamo and getting in touch with local food culture.
The program of the tour can be found here.
The ECN presentation ‘Circular Economy and Biowaste in Europe’ can be downloaded here.
More information from Marco Ricci - Juergensen (ricci.eco@gmail.com) chair of the ISWA WG on BTW and Senior Expert at the Italian Composting and Biogas Association, Italy