Anaerobic treatment: a key technology for a sustainable management of wastes in Europe

Abstract

Environmental regulations in the European Union, based on the concept of integrated prevention and control of pollution, are oriented towards the sustainability of the production processes, and this leads to better recovery of resources from raw materials, energy saving, etc. This philosophy introduces a new framework to Environmental Engineers, who have to make efforts concerning waste minimisation. During the last few decades technologies based on the anaerobic treatment of wastewaters and organic wastes have been applied successfully to a wide variety of problems. A case study on the impact of applying anaerobic technology to the treatment of wastewaters from the sugar industry in Spain is presented. Nowadays, processes based on anaerobic treatment appear to be an excellent option as the core of an integrated process for waste and wastewater treatment.