Legislative and Scientific Aspects of the Production and use of Vermicompost from Biological Sludges

The vermicomposting is a process widely employed for ecological recovery and transformation of biological sludges into ‘casting’ with a high fertilising value. While practical and scientific aspects of the process have been already studied and, for most part, understood both in laboratory and in pilot experiments, the legislative aspect is, still nowadays, very confused and lacunous. In fact, there are many national (Italian) laws which regulate the composting and vermicomposting and which overlap to regional legislation. Contrasts in defining the wastewaters origin (industrial, urban, municipal or assimilable to the municipal ones), in technical aspects of sludge processing, in finai classification and use of ‘stabilised’ product, are frequently encountered. In this work, attention has been focused on the technical aspects of sludge vermicomposting and on the legislative aspects to classify the product as a ‘compost’ according to the DPR 915/82.