502 Organic Waste Recycling: Technology and Management
Emission analysis and evaluation
The purpose of monitoring in this context is to check the addition of pollutants
to the environment from waste recycling programs. Practically it can be better
explained by the analysis and evaluation of the recycled products such as
pathogen contents in the wastewater-irrigated crops or fish raised in waste-fed
ponds and nutrient balances in the composted products or digester slurry.
Catering for future needs
The present-day technologies are changing rapidly with time. Any system has to
be flexible to cope up with future changes, and this applies to the case of waste
recycling and recovery. One of the solutions therefore is to foresee the changing
trend and restructure the waste recycling system to take care of future demands.
The increased reuse of organic wastes may be cited as an example. In the past,
animal manure was applied direct on a agricultural land, but currently it is being
fed to anaerobic digesters to produce biogas and the digested slurry applied to
crop lands in an engineered manner.
Analysis of public response for system interaction
A system can exist and grow only when it is patronized by the people for whom it
has been established. In the context of developing countries, the waste recycling
system adopted should coincide with the social attitudes and must be compatible to
the people. A typical example is the gradually diminishing public defiance in Asian
countries for consuming crops fertilized with composted materials or wastewaters.
An efficient monitoring system must then have its feed back from end users and
should consider it with due concern.
10.5.2 Data evaluation, analysis, and documentation
Monitoring relies on statistical information generated from continuous study of the
various parameters of the waste recycling system and their thorough analysis. Some
common parameters used in waste recycling systems are BOD 5 , nutrients and
pathogen contents, etc. These parameters give information on the quality and
characteristics of the incoming waste and the output or recycled products. The
above data help to identify trends in performance and phenomena of the process
and, in many cases, to establish empirical formulae.
Documentation of data is equally important to keep relevant and reliable data for
future reference and decision-making. In all cases easy to handle and systematic
storage is a must since the long-term evaluation of the process is mostly based on
these data.