3rd MEDITERRANEAN WORKSHOP,  February,  5th-8th,  2013

Presentation

In Morocco, organic waste is an important part of all solid waste generated annually. Thus, in the field of municipal waste, organic waste accounts for over 65%, with a humidity level of 70% and a total of 5 million tons annually. As for the industrial, organic waste generated mainly by the food industry more than 55% of the total industrial waste generated in Morocco. This represents more than 500 thousand tons annually, according to FODEP (Industrial Decontamination Fund of Morocco).

Considering the composition of solid waste in Morocco, it seems appropriate to focus efforts on its biodegradable organic fraction. Thus, both energy recovery through anaerobic digestion of this waste, getting methane, such as composting of municipal organic fractions. The methane by organic waste is not a new technology, there are precedents for its application to solid waste treatment in Morocco, where they have tested anaerobic digestion micro reactors, during the 80's without much success, and large digesters have been evaluated in Tangier
Marrakech, in 2004. However, no references have found their application in industry.

In Spain there are several anaerobic digestion plants in operation organic waste. The Spanish research group requesting this action has helped to implement some of these systems and researched on it for over 20 years, achieving in 2009 an award for the transfer of knowledge to the Company, convened by the Social Council University of Cordoba and 6,000 euros, for the study of methane by the orange peel generated by García Carrión Group (Don Simon) in its industrial plant in Huelva (Spain). With these premises, the applicants of the action groups were integrated in 2009, a PCI-2008-proyect, with 8,000 euros funded by the AECI, entitled "POTENTIAL OF BIO-METHANITATION APPLIED TO RECOVERY OF ORGANIC WASTE IN MOROCCO, A/018624/08" . In the course of it, there have been visits by researchers from both groups to another country, meetings with industry and leading researchers from both countries, contacts and meetings with business associations in the food sector (LANDALUZ, in Andalusia and FENAGRI, in Morocco).

Have been analyzed in Cordoba samples of two Moroccan companies selected (CITRUMA, orange and SOTRAMEG processing, which produces alcohol from sugar cane molasses) to study and report on real possibilities for use by biomethanisation, with the transformation of their waste into energy and remains recoverable. These results establish a communication presented to 14 th International Congress RAMIRAN-2010, held in Lisbon, and may even perform some scientific publications in international journals. In addition, Professor Hassan El Bari, the Moroccan team, is the founder of the Moroccan Association for Solid Waste (Association Marocaine des Déchets Solides, AMADESMorocco) and coordinates the International Network on South-North Landfill Management, created in the 11 International Symposium on Waste Management and Landfill, Sardinia, Italy 2007. Enhanced cooperation to enable the Moroccan team to generate the inventory needed to develop research in their own facilities, as well as the realization of an International Seminar on Organic Waste Management, held in Morocco.