The last 10 years have seen a variety of pilot scale plants in Europe, with progress being made towards commercialization in the last few years. Over 60 plants are now in operation worldwide, with an additional 70 under construction or in the planning phase. The following sketches of operations utilizing different technologies aims to provide a sense of the industry's present vitality and potential areas of co-utilization with aerobic composting systems. As in Bassum, this fraction is being composted and finds ready markets. On the other hand, the rest waste still contains a large percentage of compostable materials, including items such as soiled paper and diapers.
Material passes through the reactor from top to bottom where it is removed by an extraction system.
The Bassum plant is scheduled to start up in spring, 1997. A portion of that material will likely go to Unisyn Biowaste Technology, a private firm based in Waimanalo. The company was founded in 1986 and presently is anaerobically converting around 40 tons per day of wet organic residuals such as slurried fish heads, rejected hamburgers, and produce trimmings into biogas, soil amendment, and irrigation water. The system also removes grit and other large nondigestibles such as plastic, glass or metal. This resulting slurry is then pumped to methane digesters.