Characteristics and biodegradability of olive mill wastewaters.

Olive mill wastewaters (OMWs) are mostly characterized by their high-organic content and complex organic compounds in addition to the phenolic compounds. European olive oil manufacturers have to cope up with the same wastewater treatment problem and the applied conventional treatment technologies for OMW were not proved to be very successful in each case. Olive mills are mostly small and medium-sized installations and OMW is generated during the three-four-month-long manufacturing season.