Antje,

Attached is a paper scheduled for publication in June in the Journal of Sustainable Development titled "Products from Organic Waste Using Managed Ecosystem Fermentation" The paper shows the results of the technology that was verified by independent laboratories.  Basically, organic waste is a very valuable resource. I hope this helps.

Thanks a lot, Edward! I will read it with interest. BR Antje

I would like to introduce to you our an innovative Vermiculture system that treats all types of organic waste and which is with economic cost effective and a proved economic viability.

We currently have a Vermiculture system, which process a constant volume of organic waste digestion due to a system we developed and applied for a patent.

The system is not influenced by weather conditions or yearly seasons and is operating at the same daily output quantity, 365 days a year.

In the use of MSW or sewage sludge this Vermiculture System overcomes the toxicity of heavy metals and the danger of bio-accumulation in the food chain, which represents an environmental major health problem. Disposal of sewage sludge by spreading it on ground causes environmental hazards to terrestrial ecosystems and humans, due to toxic pollutants such as heavy metals, toxic organic compounds and pathogenic agents (bacteria, protozoa and viruses) that are contained in the sludge.

Feeding earthworms with sludge components, converts it rapidly to vermicompost (fertilizer), reduces the pathogens to a safe level and absorbs the heavy metals in the worm's body. The volume is significantly reduced from 1 Cubic meters of wet sludge (80% moisture) to 0.5 Cubic meters of vermicompost (30% moisture).

Hence, it fits perfectly to any organic agriculture waste, such as animal manure, olive cake etc.

As well, it fits to the treatment of MSW by creating a fully separation of the organic waste from the inorganic particles.

During this process objectionable odors disappear quickly, relative to non-earthworm ingested sludge, and there is a marked reduction in populations of the pathogenic microorganisms

Salmonella enteriditis, Escherichia coli, and other Enterobacteriaceae.

Possible Areas of Operation

• Food waste.

• Municipality solid waste. Mixture of organic with Non-organic fraction from transfer stations.

• Tetra-pack packaging (milk and juice).

• Agriculture organic solid waste (any).

• Olive cake waste.

• Waste from cowsheds, cattle and sheep.

• Piggery waste.

• Sewage Sludge with or without heavy metals.

Attached please find a commercial presentation of our total organic waste recycling process.

Dear Antje,

A theoretical framework dedicated to the valorisation of organic waste is a great idea. Where would you start: at invention level, or upstream?

Dear Laurent,

We combine value chain analysis covering upstram and downstream, mapping of differnt types of resources and capabilities, life cycle assessment, analysis of  political framework conditions. We start with upstream resources, available technologies and then possible valorisation across traditional bio-sectors. We involve a number of industry cases in our project.

There are several challenges:

- to define the sectors involved in valorisation of organic rest resources. This could be rather overwhelming

- downstream actors are not just consumers of organic rest resources, but producers of new products as well and they will also produce organic rest or co-products

- I think this should be captured by a concept addressing the circularity of the bio-economy, avoiding linear approaches

Any ideas or suggestions for literature are welcome!

I have been involved in a number of system studies investigating different treatment options for organica waste. I also have many colleagues within the same field. The basis is systems analysis and LCA. You may start by browsing my publications to get a first picture.

For the food waste

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652613007440

You can check this paper: 

http://www.ism.lu.se/sites/ism.lu.se/files/wp_15_nov_2012.pdf

Published as: Corvellec, Hervé (2014) Recycling food waste into biogas, or how management transforms overflows into flows. In, Czarniawska, Barbara & Löfgren, Orvar (eds.) Coping with excess: How organizations, communities and individuals manage overflows. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. 

Even the attached paper can be of interest: Corvellec, Hervé & Hultman, Johan (2014) Managing the politics of value propositions. Marketing Theory, 14(4): 355-375, even if it is not focused on just food waste, it shows how waste management entails the creation of different kins of values. 

Kind regards

Hervé