Co-composting of distillery and winery wastes with sewage sludge

Abstract

The winery and distillery wastes (grape stalk and marc (GS and GM, respectively), wine lees (WL) and exhausted grape marc (EGM)) are produced in great amounts in the Mediterranean countries, where their treatment and disposal are becoming an important environmental problem, mainly due to their seasonal character and some characteristics that make their management difficult and which are not optimised yet. Composting is a treatment widely used for organic wastes, which could be a feasible option to treat and recycle the winery and distillery wastes. In this experiment, two different piles (pile 1 and 2) were prepared with mixtures of GS, GM, EG and sewage sludge (SS) and composted in a pilot plant by the Rutgers static pile composting system. Initially, GS, GM and EGM were mixed, the pile 1 being watered with fresh collected vinasse (V). After 17 days, SS was added to both piles as a nitrogen and microorganisms source. During composting, the evolution of temperature, pH, electrical conductivity, total organic C, total N, humic acid-like C and fulvic acid-like C contents, C/N ratio, cation exchange capacity and germination index of the mixtures were studied. The addition of V in pile 1 produced higher values of temperature, a greater degradation of the total organic C, higher electrical conductivity values and similar pH values and total N contents than in pile 2. The addition of this effluent also increased the cation exchange capacity and produced a longer persistence of phytotoxicity. However, both piles showed a stabilised organic matter and a reduction of the phytotoxicity at the end of the composting process.