Opportunities and Constraints for Recycling Nutrients from Organic Wastes

Keywords: Recycling, Organic wastes, Compost.

In recent months in the United Kingdom a great deal of attention has been focused on the perceived need to recycle as much domestic waste as is practicable. On the face of it, this would seem to be a laudable aim. A twenty five percent target has been set by Government for the year 2000 and it is this which has prompted the expectation that organic wastes in particular will become an important feedstock in the production of various grades of marketed composts.

The reason for this is simple. About forty percent of household wastes in the UK are putrescibles. Without a scheme for dealing with these and the nutrients they contain, the Government recycling target will be incapable of being met. This is underlined by a brief consideration of the recycling potential of the various domestic waste streams.

G W Searle, UK Organic Wastes Composting Association.

15 pages, 3 tables.