Can composting be combined or integrated in some way with a digester, or will digesting kill all the microbial life?
Yes, it can. A “digester” (for those who don’t know) is a facility that takes raw organic matter and sics microbes on it to “digest” it, i.e. break it down, much like the first phase of composting. We would expect digestion to actually add to the microbial life, but with anaerobic microbes since it is primarly an anaerobic process. Using that result as a feedstock into our aerobic composting process would expand the aerobic microbes and convert the material from an anaerobic state to an aerobic state. So yes, the processes can work together without killing microbes. Their numbers simply shift as aerobic microbes replace the anaerobic ones from the digester.
