Smellier Smells

Wednesday started with a technical visit to the Villaservice MSW Plant. We visited on what had to be one of the busiest days they've had all year - with two other MSW Plants closed for upgrades and the trash collectors going on strike the day before, the amount of waste being managed was much, much higher than normal.

View of the plant from the top of their capped landfill

We first were given a presentation about the plant, as well as really great outfits to protect us from the smells that we'd come across during our tour.

DOC Students waiting for the presentation

Lauren, Alena, Francesca, and Maddy getting ready for our tour

The Villaservice Plant was one of the first MSW plants in Europe to perform anaerobic digestion and to use the biogas to power the rest of the plant. The anaerobic plant started in 2002, and at first treated all unsorted household waste. In 2010, however, it began treating only organic waste (organic MSW and sewage sludge). The process begins with both dry and wet mechanical treatment to remove nonorganic waste and debris. Then, through hydrolysis and methanogen reactors, biogas is produced that can be used for energy. The solid digestate is moved to the composting plant at the site.

Students on top of the anaerobic digestors

Methane is stored in a giant bubble on site until it will be used.

Our tour went through the composting buildings. After our visit to Arborea last week, we thought we knew what to expect, but the smell was so bad and so strong that even Annalisa had to hold her breath and run through!

The compost is ultimately sold to local farmers at about 5 Euro per metric tonne.

Our tour ended at the landfills, where there are three separate sectors. The first one, which we climbed, is capped and currently used for biogas extraction.

Biogas extraction well at the capped landfill

Due to the low level of organic waste at the landfill, there are far fewer birds and the odor is much less strong than what you would find at a landfill in the United States.

After the tour of the MSW plant, we went to Villacidro for lunch. We walked about 5 minutes to get to a small waterfall and then went on a hike up the mountain.

We hit what looked like the end of the trail, but a handful of us decided to keep exploring. After scaling many rocks and hopping over streams, we found a small swimming hole at the top of the waterfall! None of us had our swimsuits, so we jumped in in our clothes and spent an hour or so in the cold, clear water at the top of the mountain.