Commission of the European Communities (CEC) R & D Programme —Recycling of Urban and Industrial Waste

Waste Management & Research (1983) 1, 375-380

REPORTS AND REVIEWS REPORT : COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (CEC) R & D PROGRAMME-RECYCLING OF URBAN AND INDUSTRIAL WASTE . Reviewed by R . B . Dean . The main objectives of the European Community's Research and Development (R & D) Programme on Recycling of Urban and Industrial Waste are

• Long-term security of supply of resources . • Environmental protection and nature conservation . The programme also meets various general and specific criteria for Community research, particularly that of improving the effectiveness of Community action by pooling national research resources and eliminating unnecessary duplication of effort, and at the same time meeting the common collective requirements of all the Member States . The programme comprises four research areas, which in turn are subdivided into research topics . In each of these areas, current research work financed be the public authorities in the Member States is coordinated and supplemented by research projects on specific topics which are partly subsidized by the Communities in the form of indirect action (contracts where costs are generally shared fifty-fifty) .

Demonstration programme on energy savings and alternative energy sources Since 1978, the European Communities have financed demonstration projects in the field of energy saving and alternative energy sources . Demonstration links the R & D stage, sometimes tested on pilot plants and the later investment stage . It differs from R & D and the pilot stage in the industrial scale of the projects, the requirement of having prospects of economic viability, and from the normal investment stage in that the inherent risks are still considered by the entrepreneurs to be too high . The Community demonstration schemes include several fields : energy savings in buildings, industry, agriculture and transport, energy from wastes and biomass, solar energy, geothermic energy, wind energy, coal gasification and liquefaction . In the last 2 years most of the completed projects financed by the Commission of the European Communities have been technical and commercial successes . The CEC organizes a number of seminars under the R & D Programme in the field of Recycling of Urban and Industrial Waste and the Demonstration Programme on Energy Savings and Alternative Energy Sources to provide a forum for an open and free discussion on the results of the research and the demonstration carried out in the field, under the CEC and other programmes so as to :

• Improve contacts between researchers . • Exchange and disseminate information and assess the state of the art on specific topics in different EEC countries . • Promote coordination between the research projects/demonstrations programmes, funded at national level, performed under EEC contracts, etc . • Evaluate the results obtained and specially the validity of the actions taken in the



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framework of the coordination activities so as to assess the needs in research, development and demonstration and to draw guidelines for future actions . The CEC has organized two seminars in this area in 1984 (see calendar) : • Anaerobic Digestion and Carbohydrate Hydrolysis of Waste . • Sorting of Household Waste and Thermal Treatment of Waste . These seminars will be held in Luxembourg where there are facilities for simultaneous translation from all European Community languages (Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian) into English, French and German . A Working document with extended abstracts of all papers will be made available for the participants and the Proceedings will be published in English by the Commission of the European Communities, Directorate General Information Market and Innovation, and sent to the participants after the seminar . These seminars are organized to serve the needs of : • Technically oriented executives, staff, process and development engineers of companies and/or organizations having an interest in developing biomass utilization technologies or willing to process their own biomass and/or wastes from other sources to help meet their energy requirements or to produce chemicals . • Executives, systems and process design engineers of equipment manufacturers and engineering-construction firms . • City managers, municipal planning engineers, and sanitary engineers responsible for sewage and urban waste disposal or utilization . • Scientific advisors, in private and public organization . • University and industry researchers and graduate students engaged in relevant research projects . • Government and international/national science policy formulators and advisors, regulatory agency representatives . The CEC's R & D programme also holds closed workshop meetings where the state the art of specific fields are discussed at length . Proceedings of these workshops are usually published, and some of them have been reviewed in this section . For technical matters please contact Mr G . L . Ferrero (Tel . (02)235 .79 .72 or 235 .51 .63) for research projects and Mr R . Liberali (Tel . (02) 235 .54 .61) for demonstration projects . Commission of the European Communities 200, rue de la Loi B -- 1049 Brussels of

Telex 21877 comeu b

BOOK REVIEW : BIOLOGICAL HEALTH RISKS OF SLUDGE DISPOSAL TO LAND IN COLD CLIMATES. Edited by P . M . Wallis & D. L . Lehmann . Published by the University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 1983 . $18.00 . 388 pages. Reviewed by Ebba Lund . Agricultural and Veterinary University of Copenhagen (KVL) As indicated in the foreword the book was compiled by the editors to summarize information about the health hazards from pathogens associated with sludge disposal to land in cold climates . The book also includes reports from a 3-year Canadian project