PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The decision to set-up the Qualorg project was based on three facts: - Nearly half of the garbage produced by Europeans consists of biowaste. - Several Northern European countries already collect this biowaste (sorted at the source by inhabitants) in order to recover it for compost. - Agriculture makes abundant use of chemical fertilizers without taking soil depletion into account. But for ten years, this way of reusing biowaste has been decreasing in some Member States, such as France for example, because the quality of the compost is not sufficient. All the stakeholders involved, i.e. citizens, municipalities, compost users, must be concerted in order to produce a compost of high quality : this is indeed the main challenge to guarantee the market of composts resulting from organic waste. For this reason, it has become necessary to re-examine the entire chain, so that biowaste is recycled into a compost suitable for user needs.
OBJECTIVES
In this context and under the impetus of ADEME, eight French communities (Bapaume, Laon, Communauté de Commune de la Vallée de l'Oise, Niort, Bassin d'Arcachon Sud, Béziers, Agen, Côtes sud des Landes) together with a German community (Böblingen) would host the 9 pilot sites of the QUALORG programme. The main activities of the project would focus on setting up the quality approach and the establishment of guidelines to perpetuate recycling procedures, while controlling management costs. The QUALORG approach would prioritise customer satisfaction : from the citizen who sorts his waste, to the compost user and all other potential customers, farmers, fertilizers producers, landscapers, etc. It would draw its aspiration from the ISO 9001 quality systems : planned actions, on-site implementation, performance analysis and corrective measures, combined with consultation. The tasks planned were as follows: 1) The definition and validation of the quality chart. 2) Test the chart according to a 'quality system' over a period of 2 years and implementation in the pilot sites provided by the municipalities.
RESULTS
The QUALORG quality approach is based on the quality management system required for ISO 9001 certification, which means the standards are very high. This standard turned out to be too complicated for local governments to apply, so the methodology was simplified and adapted to the biowaste production chain. The quality approach depends on several basic principles : constant awareness of and compliance with customers needs at every stage of the production chain, a logical and rigorous sequence of planning, execution and improvement phases (the quality wheel), consultation and teamwork, ongoing improvement that is always geared towards simplification and objectives and methods that are consistent with cost control. Based on the experience of the nine municipalities (and/or association of municipalities) using the QUALORG approach, six main steps have been defined in the organisation and operation of the production chain : • Commitment and the QUALORG approach: elected local authority officials play a fundamental role, it is up to them to provide the impetus for the approach, to determine the general objectives to meet and to unify the relationships among the various players in the production chain. • Collection controls: these are designed to ensure the quality of the collected product. • Compost production controls and traceability. • Compost quality and distribution: the product is analysed regularly and users are kept informed of the agronomic and environmental properties of the compost produced. • Consultation and public relations : the QUALORG approach insists on setting up local committees which must include representatives of all participating parties : the contracting authority and the quality manager, the biowaste collection and treatment service providers, the compost users, the public service users, the inhabitants of the area surrounding the composting platform, representatives of the chamber of agriculture, consumer groups, ADEME and any other local actors concerned. • Personnel training and internal communication. All of the 9 sites were audited in order to evaluate progress in setting up QUALORG, as well as the quality approach, in its 2001 experimental version. Four areas were examined : mastering the process, customer relations, internal communications and definition of the quality system. The experience from the nine QUALORG sites revealed strong points as well as weaknesses. For the quality approach, the strong points were the change in the approach to waste management organisation and operation, the specific definition of responsibilities and required resources, the start of concrete actions (such as writing a quality manual), an expanded quality approach and a better technical and economic grasp of the operation. The weak points were mainly connected to the experimental nature of the project. These concerned the time needed to learn the process, to define and disseminate the specific initial objectives, long-term project monitoring and collecting data and information. The sites provided clear and quantified objectives with well-defined indicators. By following the indicators, they can supervise operations and determine corrective measures. The indicators are divided into five main categories of information that are indispensable for successful operations : the commitment of inhabitants and sorting quality, approval of the methods used, delivery of biowaste to the treatment site, compost monitoring and platform efficiency and the quality of the compost produced. The objective of reducing the amount of impurities (glass, plastic, metal) in biowaste to less than 5 % was attained at all of the sites, which often achieved significantly better results (less than 3 %). In the absence of any standard in force, each site set its own specifications, strongly influenced by the EU Eco-label guidelines (although they are considered highly ambitious), the values from the Bonduelle charter or the German compost quality association (BGK). The quality of QUALORG compost on the whole is good and in most cases, it met the objectives set by the local governments. However, the EU Eco-label limits were occasionally exceeded at some sites for zinc, nickel, cadmium or E.coli bacteria. These deviations led to separating the batch of compost concerned and seeking corrective measures for the causes. With the exception of Niort and Laon, which distribute the compost free of charge, all of the sites are now selling it (from 5 to 20 euros per tonne). The good quality of the compost and the involvement of local users in defining and monitoring the quality allowed to ensure durable outlets for the products. A detailed study of the costs has been carried out. Despite the absence of specific financing backing, a detailed analysis of some of the most optimised operations shows that the cost per tonne of biowaste is close to the one of residual waste management. This quality approach cannot be continued over the long term without meeting three conditions : clearly identified objectives that have been approved by the project sponsor, a generally adopted principle of ongoing improvement and the involvement of all of the personnel. ADEME will therefore orient its participation towards adapting this approach to the size, activities and resources of the local governments. Some communities found overall benefits in the approach and decided to apply it to all their waste management activities.