Tools
The Hamburg University of Technology is developing different online and offline tools These tools can aid professionals in waste management and community administration to find strategies for improving the utilization of locally available biogenic residues. The aim is to gain an overview over the quantities and qualities of residues from various sectors such as household biowaste, landscaping, horticulture, post-consumer wood etc. And design custom composting, biogas or biorefinery concepts that can handle the varying quantities and qualities and produce value products. In the SOILCOM project this means helping professionals in the composting area to produce high quality compost that meets the demand of farmers by controlling the input stream. With the tools as starting point, within SOILCOM practical user cases are descripted to gain experience with these tools. The local data collecting provides the tools with input. And are suitable for making up the user cases. The experts in Hamburg see Wikipedia as a nice example of what they are aiming for: a platform where everything can be found about the input waste streams. Quantities collected and the quality of the material.
Which information is suitable for these cases? As input for the tools, TUHH used information about the collection of waste and the collected quantities, the quality of the waste stream, the seasonal distribution and differences in composition of these waste streams. A specific example in this case is the end season removal of tomato plants in December in greenhouses. Leading to large amounts of leaves with a high moisture and nitrogen content. In this case new combinations and mixes must be made to obtain a suitable and useable end product.
Tools used in SOILCOM
In the SOILCOM project the following tools are used:
- SimuCF: www.simucf.de
- BRIT: a decision support system focussing on local waste streams and combinations. This support system contains a bibliography, were existing literature and scientific reports are stored, and geodata with information about collection and quality of collected input streams. And the material database, in which the characteristics of different components of input streams are described: https://brit.bioresource-tools.net
The aim is to have an open source, modular, system. Easy to use. For example for communities and cities, curious about which materials are collected in their cities and what end products can be expected. “It is a decision support system for decision makers of cities and communities. But with a scientific twist, with the databases behind the tools”.
https://www.bioresource-tools.net