The compost pile at FASAN I/S was constructed by initially laying
the different materials on top of one another using a bulldozer
followed by turning using a commercial pile turner. The pile was
turned once every week following construction. Compost material
for the measurements of micro-pollutant concentration was collected
immediately after each turning event following the
approach of Sadef et al. (2014a). At each sampling event this
approach involved taking 15 samples each of about 10 kg at random
locations within a selected 10 m section of the pile (the same
section was used at all sampling events). From each of these, one
1 kg sample was extracted and these were then combined into
one composite (15 kg) sample and thoroughly mixed. From this
composite sample approximately 10 kg material was extracted
and transported in a closed container to the laboratory. The material
was then crushed to a maximum particle size of 5 mm, using
an industrial scale blender (Sadef et al., 2013). Three random samples
of approximately 30 g each were immediately extracted from
the crushed material while the rest was stored at 4 C in the closed
container until further use. These three samples were weighed,
dried at 105 C for 24 h, weighed, and then incinerated at 550 C
for 24 h and weighed again to determine their moisture and volatile
solids (VS) contents. The remaining compost material was then
analyzed for the same 15 organic micro-pollutants as considered in
the bench-scale experiments following the procedure of (Sadef
et al., 2014a).