Monitoring Strategies and Safeguarding of Quality Standards for Compost

The qualified separated collection of organic residues from households, gardenand park areas is the actual technical standard in Germany and obligatory as to the regulations of the waste law. The former composting municipal solid wastes has not been proved to be successful.The German Ferderal Compost Quality Assurance Organisation (FCQAO) defined a general quality standard (RAL compost quality sign) and established a nation-wide system for external monitoring of composting plants and compost products. Today approximately 170 compost plants participate in the quality assurances of the FCQAO.The quality assurance programme contains the definition and continuation of quality requirements, the organisation and enforcement of quality monitoring, the punishment of regulation omissions and violations and the labelling of the quality standard.The type, extend and frequency of evaluations depends on the capacity of the composting plant. In order to guarantee an identical standard for the monitoring all over Germany, FCQAO established a central office where all results originated from external monitoring are evaluated.