PROGNOSES ABOUT THE REUSE OF SEWAGE SLUDGE FOR AGRICULTURAL PURPOSES IN GERMANY

摘要

Due to German law, disposal of sewage sludge and other organics on deposits is forbidden from the year 2005 on. Therefore an important issue is whether it is possible to reuse sewage sludge for agricultural purposes (only long-term recycling path), or if it is necessary to make arrangements to burn more sewage sludge. The German waste act prefers recycling instead of deposal, if both methods are similar in terms of costs. Taking into account, that German law does not regard burning of sewage sludge as (energy-) recycling (due to it's low burning-value), it is of overriding importance for the development of new waste management concepts. The paper explores whether the agricultural sector will be able to use all this sewage sludge in future and if farmers, guided by monetary aspects, agree. Different scenarios were considered with an agro-economic model system called RAUMIS, which is also used by the German Agriculture Ministry.