Abstract
Horticultural farms are faced with the problem of disposing of huge amounts of agricultural by-products whose management requires sustainable solutions. Composting means to recycle organic waste to make compost—a high agronomic value product—able to positively affect soil quality: A good occasion to switch definitively from a conventional agriculture to an organic one. Nevertheless, composting can have negative direct/indirect environmental impacts. The aim of this research was to assess the sustainability of a windrow composting system, able to treat agricultural green waste of different typology (“light” and “heavy” with dry matter below or above 10%, respectively). Environmental impacts, energy consumptions, and production costs of all composting stages were evaluated by Life Cycle Assessment. Results show that the production of 1 ton of compost caused CO2eq emissions ranging from 199 to 250 kg and required between 1500 and 2000 MJ of energy; costs ranged between 98 and 162 euro, nevertheless lesser than the commercial green compost. The raw material typology affected significantly the composting process making compost based on “heavy” materials the most sustainable. These findings underline the need to spread this low technology process, easy to apply, especially in organic farms, and to promote the agronomic use of compost.
Highlights
For several years horticultural farms have faced the problem of disposing of vegetable biomasses resulting from residues of agricultural crops and trees
After 20 years of working, in our experimental conditions, the construction of the facility, the collection of the bulking agent and the crop residues, the process, the transport of the compost to the field and its distribution, plus direct emissions produced during the decomposition phases, could cause an abiotic depletion (AD) equal to 44 kg of Sb; a global warming potential (GWP) between 1,668,000 and 1,678,000 kg of CO2eq ; an average ozone layer depletion (ODP) of 0.13 kg of CFC-11eq ; a photochemical oxidation (PO) from 613 to 620 kg of C2 H4 eq; an air acidification (AA) between 14,558 to 14,581 kg of SO2 eq; and an average eutrophication potential (EP) about of 5965 kg of PO4— eq (Table 4)
The Light compost (LC) consisting of fresh material rich in water involved more transportation of raw materials and fuel consumption to create the piles
Summary
For several years horticultural farms have faced the problem of disposing of vegetable biomasses resulting from residues of agricultural crops and trees. The supply of livestock feed [2] is the most common recovery form of these residues. In most cases, this waste, as it is, is delivered at the livestock farms, with contract of assignment, and it is mostly used fresh, as much of it is waste from the processing of vegetables intended for fresh consumption. This waste, as it is, is delivered at the livestock farms, with contract of assignment, and it is mostly used fresh, as much of it is waste from the processing of vegetables intended for fresh consumption This type of recovery, is not always possible. This practice is quite easy for residues produced in the field but not for Agronomy 2020, 10, 230; doi:10.3390/agronomy10020230 www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
