Database “organic and mineral residues”

In the spirit of the material recycling concept in Germany (KrW-/AbfG, 1994), wastes are to be recycled as completely as possible, avoiding any impairment for mankind and the environment. In this connection, avoidance of material burdens by excessive nutrient and pollutant discharge is particularly important in the treatment, recycling and bringing into circulation of waste materials for re-use in agriculture and forestry, as well as in horticulture and landscape conservation/recultivation. The implementation of the minimisation precept in the Recycling and Waste Act can be accelerated by the availability of up-to-date data on the material characterisation of the wastes; editing of all available data in the form of a database is an ideal way of meeting this requirement.

The project community, consisting of KTBL, VDLUFA and the Association of Soil Conditioning, prepared a data base on organic residues already in 1997. This data base served as a basis for the data base project `Organic and Mineral Residues` started in 1998, which is financed by the German Federal Foundation for the Environment (DBU), Osnabrück.

The objective of the DBU-promoted project was to include data on mineral residues, commercial fertilisers, composts and co-ferments in the database, alongside the already existing organic residues, in order to obtain a comprehensive data-pool covering all potentially recyclable residues. The structuring of the database focused on the design of user-kindly extract masks. In addition to querying nutrient and pollutant contents of the individual residues, information on fields of application, periods of use, spreading techniques and classification in accordance with fertiliser types can also be extracted.