Suitability of Composted Household Waste of Helsinki Metropolitan Area for Agriculture

The number of inhabitant s in Helsinki metropolitan area is 850000. They produce annually over 300000 tons of municipal waste, of which about one third is of rapidly decomposable biological origin. In April 1993, collection of source separated household waste and municipal biowaste was started in a large scale in the area by the the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (HMAC). This study is a part of the larger project conducted by the HMAC and the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) which will find out ways to recycle the source separated biowaste. Theaim of the present study was to clarify the suitability of the biowaste for agriculture with the aid of physico-chemical analy ses and pot experiments which were carried out by the Agricultural Research Centre of Finland (MTT).