Blog 3: Technical Visit

 Today, we had our first technical visit to the Arborea waste management complex. We learned about and observed their practices for plastic sorting, mechanical biological pre-treatment, and composting. It was cool to see the facility in action - I’ve never seen firsthand what happens to waste beyond collection. (The sheer volume and smell of waste are definitely motivating to reduce waste generation - I’ve been incredibly conscious of my disposal throughout this whole experience, but especially today!)

As someone who’s studied chemical separation processes, I found it especially interesting to see the physical separation processes employed to separate the plastics. These included both rotating magnets and magnetic fields to separate out ferrous and non-ferrous metals, optical analysis and air jets to sort plastic by color, rotating disks to sort bottles and film, and manual separation. It was also cool to stand on top of a landfill - something that we’d never be able to do in the US, as Annalisa said.  I drove by a landfill (Cherry Island landfill in DE) a few times while working as a wastewater intern back home, and it was quite different to the one we stood on today: much bigger, with lots of birds and bugs circling around, a smell noticeable a few minutes down the road, and landfill gas recovery. It was also interesting to learn about the composting process and usefulness for various agricultural purposes throughout Sardinia. Looking forward to our next technical visit!