Integrated biowaste management by composting at a university campus: process monitoring and quality assessment
2025
Álvarez-Alonso, Cristina | Pérez-Murcia, María Dolores | Martínez-Sabater, Encarnación | Irigoyen Iriarte, Ignacio | Sánchez Arizmendiarrieta, Joseba | Plana, Ramón | López, Marga | Nogués, Isabel | Bustamante, María Ángeles | Agronomía, Biotecnología y Alimentación | Agronomia, Bioteknologia eta Elikadura | Institute for Multidisciplinary Research in Applied Biology - IMAB
The sustainable management of biowaste, mainly food and pruning waste, is currently a challenge due to the increase in its production. The CaMPuSTAJE program, which has been implemented on the campus of the Public University of Navarre (UPNA) since 2019, is an excellent example of how the institution is addressing its strategic interests in sustainable waste management. The principal aim of this program is to manage the biowastes generated by the campus canteens through a simple community composting facility, involving UPNA students and graduates. This program aims to promote experiential learning and applied research in sustainability and circular economy, managing their own waste in a circular and local way. Thus, four composting sets of the CaMPuSTAJE program were evaluated by monitoring the process and the main chemical properties of the composting samples. Also, final composts were fully characterized to ensure the process reproducibility and efficiency and the absence of any hazard in the end-products. The final composts showed a significant agronomic quality, had low content of potentially toxic elements, and were free from phytotoxicity, thus being able to be reintroduced as an organic amendment at the university campus itself.
Show more [+] Less [-]This research was funded by the research project NEOCOMP (ref. PID2020-113228RB-I00) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and it was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Universities with a PhD contract (FPU21/01207) to the first author.
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