Final Workshop

The Final Workshop of the Sino-German project “Recycling of organic residues from agricultural and municipal origin in China", sponsored by the German BMBF and the Chinese MOST, and jointly organized by the China Agricultural University (CAU), the FH Trier and the TU BS research groups was successfully held from March 9th to 11th, 2012 at the Sino-German Center for Research Promotion (DFG-NSFC) in Beijing.

There were 90 participants in total, including governmental officials, environmental experts, enterprise representatives, scientists and students, respectively, from the Chinese Ministry of Science & Technology (MOST), the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MOEP), the Beijing Municipal Government, Chinese universities, German universities and institutes, local governments, as well as companies and SMEs from Germany and China.

In the morning of the first workshop day (March 9th), two welcome addresses were given by Dr. Heike Strelen, Director (German side) of the Sino-German Center, and Dr. René Haak, First Counsellor Science and Technology, German Embassy Beijing. After an introduction given by the project spokesperson on the Chinese side, Prof. Dr. Zhang Fusuo (CRES, CAU), the opening address was held by Mr. Li Gang, Vice-Director of International Cooperation between China and Europe, MOST. The coordinators and the heads of the two research groups summarized the overall project results. After the lunch break, the invited international and Chinese experts, Prof. Dr. Wim de Vries (Senior researcher, Wageningen University), Prof. Dr. Bernhard Raninger (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Biomass Utilization Project China) and Prof. Dr. Chen Qing (CRES, CAU) gave their key-note speeches. The day ended with a plenary discussion on policy recommendations to be drawn out of the project.

During the second workshop day (March 10th), all subprojects presented their detailled research results and discussed the scientific outcome. They comprised all the broad range of topics related to recycling of organic residues, and the related energy and environmental aspects. Additionally, a follow-up project on the creation of Zero-Emission waste water towns in Liaoning province jointly developed by Shenyang University/IAE and FH Trier/IfaS and sponsored by MOST was introduced by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Xue Bing, Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) / CAS, Shenyang. Finally, Prof. (PRC) Dr. Frank Schuchardt (vTI, Braunschweig) gave first results from a comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of an exemplary pig farm near Beijing. The workshop ended with a plenary discussion of the topical presentations and research actions. The 3rd workshop day (March 11th) was devoted to the optional site-visit of an integrated ecological production base in Wu Zi Village, Liulihe, Fangshan District, Beijing, producing organic food.

Prior to the Final Workshop, the FH Trier research group launched a project evaluation workshop in Beijing from March 7th-8th, 2012, a milestone of the work programme of the research group in the “Recycling” project. During the two workshop days, the site works were evaluated by the Chinese and German project partners. The partners presented the results of their work and gave suggestions for the further proceedings at the project sites and beyond. The overall research topic/field of activities was broken down to three topical sessions (sewage sludge, kitchen wastes and manure). The workshop ended with the introduction of a prospective biogas project by the Chinese investor at the BMBF/MOST project site Lanzhou.

The workshop offered plenty of opportunities for interactions between the various European and Chinese scientists and stakeholders involved, as well as new ideas for pursuing further cooperation .

You will find more pictures from this workshop here