Quality of Composts: Organic Matter Stabilization and Trace Metal Contamination

Recycling organic wastes in agriculture after appropriate biological treatment can produce organic matter resources and be of great interest in countries where soils are depleted. However the quality of end-products must be assessed. This paper deals with two main problems: the development of reliable, rapid and normalized procedures for the monitoring of organic matterthe evaluation of risks arising from the presence of micropollutants such as trace metals.Information provided by various analytical procedures is presented. Special attention is given to spectroscopic measurements for the monitoring of organic matter and, for trace metal speciation, to chemical sequential extraction and to gel exclusion chromatography coupled with a double detection (U.V. and atomic absorption spectrophotometry).