Digestate: standardization and certification of products
Currently, the term “digestate” is not introduced in Ukrainian legislation, although some regulations use its definitions in different terms. There are also no special requirements for standardizing the quality of digestate or products from it.
The Ukrainian legislation does not formulate either a generalized term for “digestate”, which would cover the flows of digestate formed from all types of raw materials of plant and animal origin, or special requirements for the standardization of such digestate or products from it. But it is necessary in view of the cumulative increase in the annual generation of digestate in Ukraine.
About 2 million tons of digestate were formed at existing biogas plants in 2019
UABIO estimates
Standardization of the quality of the digestate may include:
- setting requirements for the types of input raw materials;
- categorization of products from it by purpose (for example, fertilizer, soil improver or growing medium);
- categorization by the content of organic carbon, nutrients, the phase state of digestate products, etc.;
- setting limits on the concentration of certain chemical elements and compounds (heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, etc.);
- setting restrictions on the presence of pathogenic microflora and weed seeds;
- establishment of requirements for the control of the technological cycle of formation, movement, and storage of digestate and products from it.
How is it work in Europe?
At the European level, there is a scheme of voluntary certification of compost and digestate ECN-QAS. It aims to establish a common basis for existing quality assurance schemes in Europe and to support Member States in setting quality standards and developing their own quality assurance schemes for compost and digestate. About the requirements under the ECN-QAS scheme you can read on the site.
To be available on the market, any type of fertilizer in the EU must comply with the requirements of Regulation (EU) 2019/1009 of 5 June 2019. The main feature of this Regulation is the categorization of products by functional purpose(a total of 20 types, combined into 7 groups of functional products).
The Bioenergy Association of Ukraine since 2019 is a partner of the platform of sustainable agribusiness SAF Ukraine.
