OLIVE OIL PROCESSING WASTES PRODUCTION AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS IN RELATION TO OLIVE OIL EXTRACTION METHODS

The quantity and characteristics of olive-mill wastewater as well the solid residues depend mainly on olive oil extraction process. The pres ent paper deals with the characterization of liquid and solid wastes g enerated from the three existing extraction processes: the old press e xtraction process, the conventional continuous centrifugation 3-phase process and the recently new continuous centrifugation 2-phase process . Also the mass balance of each process is presented as well an evalua tion of the environmental impact of the 2-phase process.