Hi,
I'm finding the discussion very interesting and stimulating and would like to
second Chris's opinion

At 21:28 11.10.00 -0400, Chris Furedy wrote:
>cut......  I think that Inge and Rogier have made an excellent
>contribution in attempting to compare these
>dimensions of very different composting undertakings...cut....
>and we have a general idea of the financial
>implications of composting urban organicic wastes.  So
>I hope that this work will prompt others to gather data to
>allow further comparisons.
>Chris

My name is also Chris (but I'm a Mr. :-) ) and I work for SANDEC, a research
institution focussing on water and sanitation issues of developing countries.
In solid waste management a major part of our research activities focus on
decentralized composting of municipal solid waste.

I find the dissemination of information from existing cases very important
and often neglected (maybe because it is so difficult to get "comprehensive"
data). There are many, many composting experiences out there and the same
lessons learned in one case are learned over and over again in other cases.

Let me add few comments to the various contributions:

 in response to Manfred:
>How do you fix the sales price? Is it just wishful thinking or
>is it based on some market research, or did
>you identify the buyers of the compost and the
>price they are willing to pay?

* I think market research before setting up a composting scheme is "still"
wishful thinking. The late cognition that the demand for the product is
laking (especially at the prices fixed for cost recovery) is one of the main
reasons so many composting schemes have failed. On the other hand market
research is not easy when 1) You are not really aware how much the composting
operation is going to cost (which is why such work, gathering experiences on
costs of different scales of operation is really important) and 2)
Willingness to pay is difficult to assess when awareness on compost and its
benefits (other than fertilizer value) is very low. Price settings with
calculations based on "fertilizing" value give a comparably high price for
compost which does not take into account the other benefits.

The issue I would like to bring up is:
Why do composting schemes have to be financially feasible/viable? No one has
ever raised the idea that a landfill should be financially feasible (after
all it is just a badly operated anaerobic reactor) - then why a composting
site? I think the message which needs to be embeeded in the waste management
strategies is that composting can be a safe, hygienic treatment method of the
organic fraction which can even make "some" revenues.

The Indian Supreme Court's direction (mentioned by Almitra in
[MFA-JAGANNATH]) is a very progressive step, however, now municipalities will
want tools, information on existing experiences (and this article is a
beginning) and assistance to implement viable composting operations.

Cheers,
Chris
-
Mr. Chris Zurbrugg
Dept. of Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries (SANDEC)
Swiss Federal Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (EAWAG)
P. O. Box 611
8600 Duebendorf, Switzerland
phone: +41-1-8235423  fax: +41-1-8235399
http://www.sandec.ch