VI.2 – Success stories of composting in the European Union. Leading experiences and developing situations: ways to success

This chapter focuses on the driving forces for composting at the European Union (EU) level. The Directive on landfills basically provides for the landfilled biowaste to be sharply reduced within the next years. This is aimed at effectively reducing the production of biogas at landfilling sites and to improve the conditions at which landfills are operated (for example, lower chemical strength of leachates and less settlements in the shape of the site after the landfill gets shut down). Composting is the most natural way to manage biowaste and its cost is generally lower than that of incineration. The wide development of strategies aimed at the recycling of biowaste through composting in the central European member states is largely based upon steady marketing conditions. This, in turn, ensures outlets for the end product, thus, providing further justification for the strategy. A quality assurance system (QAS) links the quality of the end product to all the elements of process management; a comprehensive quality management of the composting plant, thus, gets possible.