Life Cycle Inventory & Assessment Report: Source Separation of Dairy Cattle Manure, Finland
In the Source Separation system, urine and faeces are kept separately after excretion, and not mixed together as in the slurry system. Separation of manure is argued with the possibility of enhanced use of manure P in the fields. Compared to slurry, P-rich solid fraction of manure can be transported longer distances and applied on the low P-value fields, while the N-rich liquid fraction can be utilized as N fertilizer in high P-value fields.
The study showed that using Source Separation system ammonia losses may become higher during the storage of the two fractions than in the slurry system. Therefore it is important to prevent ammonia evaporation effectively by covering urine storages tightly and by preventing spontaneous composting of solid fraction or covering the solid manure heaps tightly. However, environmental impacts of the slurry system can also be reduced efficiently using the same principles.
This report on Source Separation of dairy cattle manure was prepared as part of Work Package 5 on Assessing Sustainability of Manure Technology Chains in the project Baltic Manure.
Click here to read the report