Digestion of the Future

View from the top of one of the anaerobic digestion centrifuges

Today we had our last technical visit where we visited an anaerobic digestion plant. The entire center consisted of not only this facility, but also a landfill, solar park, waste water treatment center, and a composting plant. There were so many different waste management systems in this place that it was almost like an entire park. For those who aren't familiar with the term, anaerobic digestion is where organic waste is broken down without oxygen and uses microorganisms to produce methane, which then becomes an energy source. This is a much cleaner way to produce energy as well as reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfills. Here, they receive so much organic waste (food and yard scraps) from municipalities that they have to separate them between anaerobic digestion and composting. At this specific plant, the anaerobic digestion side is processed in two different stages in order to collect the gas that the microorganisms produce.

Giant biogas ball

Eucalyptus tree filter

One of the coolest things at the facility was how they contained the biogas they collected, which was a giant sphere made of a type of plastic where the inside would fill with gas if there was too much being produced that could go into the system at once. It looked like a giant planetarium from the outside and looked like something that didn't belong. Another thing that I found interesting was the bio-filter they had created out of eucalyptus trees. These trees are not native to the island, but can be found everywhere. Their branches and trunk are used in order to limit the amount of smell that was coming out of the compost facility. It neutralized the smell with only some water and some trees. What really made this visit stand out from the others was our tour guide that led us around the plant. He was very enthusiastic, always smiling and joking. And his English was really good compared to a lot of the other people we have talked to. It was surprising to learn though, that he is self-taught in English with his only big interaction with native English speakers being a week long trip to the UK. Other than that, he just watches TV shows and learns from that. It's amazing to think that everything he was telling us he learned on his own with no one to practice with. I'm glad we could help him out by giving him an audience for the morning!

Some falling water

The second half of the day was spent doing more hiking. I didn't realize coming here that the terrain would be so mountainous. I did look up the island before-hand, but I thought more of my time would be spent on the beach rather than hiking. The first part of our hike led up to a waterfall, but it was more like a water-trickle since it is currently the dry season here in Sardinia. After seeing the water, myself and a couple other people couldn't resist the rocks that were all around us and followed the trail in order to hike higher. It was a lot of fun following the trail and hiking over rocks in order to get a better view. Heights still freak me out continuously, yet having the view of everything around you is worth the little bit of fear in the back of your mind.

View from climbing (not even close to the top)