Ana what?

Today I woke up in a rather frenzied state an hour and a half after my alarm clock sounded by two powerful knocks on my door. I was 20 minutes late to the bus that was supposed to take us to the Villaservice Plant where we would learn all about their waste management practices. The plant does all of the following anaerobic digestion, composting, recycling and co-generation of landfilling gas, photovoltaic power stations and wind farms. Since we have seen all of the other types of waste management in previous technical visits. Today we focused on anaerobic digestion which is a collection process by which microorganisms break down biodegradable material without oxygen.

An hour ride later we arrived and were taken to a room for an hour long presentation by one of the workers with great English. Broken down by bullet points to make this quick here is what I learned:

• Anaerobic digestion comes in two stages here: 
1. Organic Slurry
2. Hydrolysis Sludge

• The plant is authorized to treat 10,800 Mg/yr of organic waste
• What is treated is stored in a dome (pictured below)

Bio-gas dome (photo by Kestral Johnson)

After we left the plant we went for a little excursion to a hiking trail in Villacidro.

SMILE (photo by Eli Brown)

The trail led to a little enclosure where I decided to set up on a boulder and laid down in the sun. The view was so beautiful. It was all cliffs and clear blue sky.

The group exploring while I lay down (photo by Eli Brown)

 It was a fun day. What I like about this program the most is that we have a divide of both, the educational and the cultural. What I also like about this program is that they are both equally as fun.