ABSTRACT
Removing the risk of environmental or public health damage and deriving a stabilised product must always form the lowest step in the hierarchy, since this is the first aim of all biological waste treatment. Germany, which makes the highest individual contribution, at the present time manages only 6.6" of the total available biowaste arising within the Union and the other countries. Waste arrives for treatment as a result of one of three general means of collection; as mixed Municipal solid waste (MSW), as part of a separate collection scheme or via civic amenity sites or recycling banks. The future of biological waste treatment is inextricably linked with the establishment of good and sustainable markets for the products, particularly as the physical amount of these materials being generated increases. The economics of biological waste treatment are major factors in the whole equation, in terms of both operator and client, and the implications of this to local authority budgeting are very great.
