ROMANIA AND THE POTENTIAL OF BY-PRODUCTS AS SOURCES OF ENERGY AND ORGANIC COMPOUNDS

Abstract

By product is broadly understood as a product obtained in a usually industrial or biological process in addition to the main product for which the process is carried out. The main challenge addressed to humanity as well as productive ecosystems, regardless of the form of terrestrial or aquatic substrate, is to cope with the rapid rate of growth of the planet's population. The demographic growth of the planet must be in balance with the maintenance of the environment and also with climatic shifts. By-products are often considered agricultural waste or residues, it contains valuable cellulosic nutrients that due to their organic origin can be successfully used in many other agricultural or industrial subfields. It can be appreciated that at the level of Romania, the agricultural sector has as a land heritage about 18 million hectares, of which 10 are arable, 5 million are permanent meadows and about 3 million hectares are forests, with very favorable geographical conditions for the growth of plants and animals. This report illustrates the fact that each inhabitant of Romania has an area of approximately 0.41 ha of arable land. This value is far above the average of several countries in the European Union and at the same time, it is double the EU average, which is at the level of 0.212 ha/inhabitant. The huge quantities of by-products, of vegetable residues from agriculture, can be estimated quantitatively at 15 million tons, and when converting this secondary production into money, the current value of 2.5 billion dollars is exceeded.