International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

separated kitchen and garden waste, because the outputs achieved from sewage
sludge no longer achieve the standards that farmers demand to maintain an
ecologically safe farm.
In Germany, once it was made clear that composts were no longer to be derived from
mixed wastes, a positive perception of compost was formed in those BTP markets
other than agriculture, especially in the landscaping and growing media sector.
Representatives from business sectors such as landscaping and growing media were
substantially involved in the foundation of the German Compost Quality Assurance
Organisation and the development of standards and application recommendations. In
the agricultural sector, the agricultural branch organisation and authorities were
initially typically against the use of compost in agriculture, with political rivalry
between the Ministry of the Environment (pro- compost use) and the Ministry of
Agriculture (against compost use) fuelling the debate. Nevertheless, personal
relationships between compost producers and farmers helped to build up the
necessary confidence for the use of compost in agricultural practice.
Continuing development of trust between compost producers and farmers, success
stories within the farming sector, and the strictly quality-oriented work of the German
QAS all helped build confidence within the agricultural sector on the use of compost.
Nevertheless, it took nearly 10 years before the first generally available brochure for
compost application in agriculture was published. Confidence was, nonetheless,
sufficient that even when animal protein was found in sugar beets and the sugar beet
organisation subsequently forbade their member farms to use compost (a loss of
30% of the German compost market), the sugar beet industry remained open to
discussions with the compost sector, and to the outcomes of research, which finally
identified the source of the protein as coming not from compost, but from rodents
living on the sugar beet storage piles at the border of the fields.
There has been a particularly strong focus on AD technology in Sweden due to
national support and a demand for upgraded biogas as a vehicle fuel. There is a
positive awareness of the need to recycle and re-use organic waste to reduce fossil
fuel requirements and climatic impacts. The majority of BTP standards in Sweden are
based on voluntary agreements rather than statutory regulations, due to the high
quality BTPs that are produced in Sweden, which in turn, are related to input material
controls. Farmers have used 98 % of digestate outputs on agricultural land in 2008,
illustrating the faith that farmers have in this product as being ecologically safe; in
contrast, the majority of compost outputs are used by the growing media/substrate
market due to economic viability.
36.6 Implementation Costs
A variety of factors contribute to the implementation costs of composting/AD
standards; these will include;
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� Feedstock collection costs to ensure minimal contamination;
� Monitoring costs of composting/AD process and product;
� Technology used (composter/AD plant type); and
� Marketing costs for the product.
International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes