This study, commissioned by the municipality of Tiana and supported by the Waste Agency of Catalonia (ARC), aimed to obtain a tool to estimate the quantities of biowaste managed in home composting devices in Catalonia. An extensive field work was performed, including interviews with 100 users, all over Catalonia, and the monitoring of a number of variables in the composters.
Finally, using econometric techniques, a “calculator” was developed to estimate the amount of biowaste managed by each composter, derived from several exogenous variables. This project won the Environmental Award 2008, awarded by the Catalan Government.
In a second phase of the project, titled “Characterization and current status of home composting in Catalonia”, a deeper exploitation of the obtained data was performed in order to characterize home composting in Catalonia and to understand the socio-economic aspects of the households performing home composting. Statistical inference was also performed to infer the causes that determine the size of the composters (number of residents, housing characteristics, etc.).
ENT environment & management
2008
Ajuntament de Tiana