ABSTRACT
Biowaste arises from a variety of human, agricultural, horticultural and industrial sources and can be considered to form three general groups; waste of directly animal origin, plant materials and processed materials. All such waste can be converted into a reusable product of one form or another, the biological treatment of biowaste has implications for any overall re-use/recover/recycle strategy. The disposal of biowaste in landfill also raises the question of pollution, since as water percolates through, it leaches out both organic and inorganic compounds which may leave the site via the subsoil or site drains and culverts. To put the pollution issue in some kind of context, landfill leachate analysis ranges are commonly quoted based on the average values obtained from established sites. A second aspect of biowaste-derived pollution from landfills, and perhaps a more worrying in global terms, is production of methane, which is, as a greenhouse gas, more than thirty times more damaging than similar amounts of carbon dioxide.
