Paper Title
INTENSIVE AND SEMI-CONTINUOUS THERMOPHILIC COMPOSTING OF ORGANIC FRACTION MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE

Abstract
Municipal waste management is a strategic priority at the national level, both from the perspective of fulfilling the obligations undertaken in the Treaty of Accession to the European Union (EU), and from the perspective of improving the quality of life of Romanian citizens and increasing economic opportunities, especially in the context of promoting the new EU legislative provisions aimed at the circular economy. However, according to the latest Country Report published on February 27, 2019, the waste management system is underdeveloped. At the same time, the Early Warning Report for Member States at risk of not meeting the target for the preparation for reuse/recycling of municipal waste set for 2020, it is noted that Romania is one of the Member States with the highest risk of not meeting the targets in the Waste Framework Directive given that it continues to record a very low municipal waste recycling rate of 14% (7% material recycling and 7% composting) and a very high waste landfilling rate of 70% according to Eurostat data from 2017, while the EU average is a 45% recycling rate and a 24% landfilling rate. Although composting appears to be a simple technology, the need and potential for the development of composting technology must be considered. The thermophilic phase is a very dynamic phase in which high microbial activity leads to accelerated degradation of organic matter. This phase also has a sanitizing role in the compost. The aim of the current study is to optimize a system for composting biodegradable organic waste in an intensive thermophilic system, under semi-continuous feeding strategy with a short overall batch duration. The intensification of the process was done, on the one hand, by exploiting the active thermophilic phase (eliminating the lag phase) of the composting process and optimizing operational parameters and inoculum. The results reccomend intensive composting as an opportunity for organic waste management, based on extensive lab-scale thermophilic composting tests in different scenarios. Keywords - Composting, Organic Fraction Municipal Solid Waste, Nutrients