Dear Colleagues,

Due to economic growth, production intensification and relocation, and urbanisation, organic waste (OW) accumulates in increasingly large “nutrient sinks”, leading to an increasing need and potential for OW recycling. The agricultural recycling of organic waste derived from urban, agricultural, and agro-industrial sources thus constitutes a key strategy for sustainable development. Nonetheless, a number of challenges hinder the global increase of this practice. For instance, the repeated application of nutrient-laden OW in crop fields can also drastically boost the levels of trace contaminants in soil, whose fate in the environment remains difficult to quantify; the substitution of synthetic fertiliser regimes with OW-derived organic fertilisers is complex due to the variability in nutrient contents; many direct field emission models do not capture the mode of action of organic fertilisers; the regional availability of suitable OW in high-fertilisation-demand areas may be limited; and existing legislation may hinder agricultural recycling of OW. Not all of these information needs are addressed by existing environmental assessment methods and tools, while the development of such tools and methods also sometimes lags behind the state-of-the-art of the underlying research fields.

To contribute to the body of literature addressing these challenges, this Special Issue aims to describe technical and environmental issues associated with the agricultural recycling of OW in the world, and to propose solutions to overcome them. Review and research papers are sought, as well as pertinent case studies, as long as novel approaches are applied to overcome one or more issues.

Recent publications have started to address said issues, yet a number of gaps remain. This Special Issue aims to highlight and fill some of these gaps.

Dr. Angel Avadí
Dr. Tom Wassenaar
Dr. Julie Jimenez
Guest Editors

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• agronomic value of organic fertilisers
• contaminants
• direct field emissions
• organic fertilisers
• organic waste treatment