Bioprocess Network for Solid Waste Management

The anaerobic digestion process is a well-known and still growing technology. It has been implemented in full scale in several waste and wastewater treatment plants. The key issue is the treatment, stabilization, and waste reduction in order to obtain benefits, especially energy and bioproducts. Efficient separate collection, first of all, is the key for anaerobic digestion success. Separate collection is the prerequisite to have waste streams of good quality at the source for further treatments, and it can be implemented at reasonable costs. We have to change the paradigm in plant pretreatment configuration, thus passing from complicated pretreatment lines to simplified systems. Moreover, urban waste treatment processes should be considered as real productive industries. The future vision of biowaste management leads to consider it as a raw material to produce not only energy but also products (e.g., bioplastics). The new aerobic/anaerobic biorefinery comes from the integration of the cycles that take advantage of the wastewater treatment and the urban organic waste management as a valuable source for the production of products and energy resources. The integrated approach for waste stream treatment gives considerable advantages, which lead this option in the field of the "smart" opportunities for the urban service management.