Figure 3 describes an ideal model of circular economy where food-waste are
able to bring the benefits described in 1–4.
In order to put into practice this model and make real the social, economic and
environmental benefit of bio-economy, specific incentives could be introduced for
those farmers that apply compost in their agricultural fields. This would increase the
demand of high quality compost which could/should be the driving force of the
whole system. It is worth to point out that sustainable SOM management is a
requisite of emerging standards on the sustainable biomass production like the
European EN16751 [24].
Another important aspect for the success of this circular economy model is the
execution of an appropriate separate collection of bio-waste by the consumers as a
key prerequisite to (i) ensure high quality compost and (ii) reduce the bio-waste
management costs of Citizen should be more and more informed about the
importance of their behaviour on the success of bio waste management chain. This
Fig. 2 Yearly average GHG balance for one hectare of cardoon cultivation, with or without
compost, * stands for negligible contribution
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