Addressing the gaseous and odour emissions gap in decentralised biowaste community composting

•Community composting was systematically studied in terms of atmospheric emissions.•Ammonia, methane, nitrous oxide, VOC and odours were measured in several sites.•Community compost presents a good quality, especially in terms of stability.•VOC families were diverse, although terpenes were the predominant compounds.•The age of the material and turning dramatically affects gaseous emissions. Composting has demonstrated to be an effective and sustainable technology to valorise organic waste in the framework of circular economy, especially for biowaste. Composting can be performed in various technological options, from full-scale plants to community or even individual composters. However, there is scarce scientific information about the potential impact of community composting referred to gaseous emissions. This work examines the emissions of methane and nitrous oxide as main GHG, ammonia, VOC and odours from different active community composting sites placed in Spain, treating kitchen, leftovers and household biowaste. Expectedly, the gaseous emissions have an evident relation with the composting progress, represented mainly by its decrease as temperature or biological activity decreases. GHG and odour emission rates ranged from 5.3 to 815.2 mg CO2eq d-1 kg-1VS and from 69.8 to 1088.5 ou d-1 kg-1VS, respectively, generally being lower than those find in open-air full-scale composting. VOC characterization from the community composting gaseous emissions showed a higher VOC families’ distribution in the emissions from initial composting phases, even though terpenes such as limonene, α-pinene and β-pinene were the most abundant VOC along the composting process occurring in the different sites studied. The results presented in this study can be the basis to evaluate systematically and scientifically the numerous current projects for a worldwide community composting implementation in decentralised biowaste management schemes.