Abstract
Problem associated with composting household organic waste, such as time consuming and limited space, have received increasing attention during the last few years. As suburban city, Depok generates about 3480 m3 of municipal solid wastes per day comprised of 68,25% organics and 31,75% of inorganic. During the last five years, home made composting with bioactivator was introduced by local governments to reduce amount of municipal wastes going into landfill. These traditional bioactivators were used to accelerate decomposing process but their impact has never been studied before. The objective of this study were to assess the seeding effect on home made composting by inoculating a mixture of organics household wastes with bioactivator. Among six bioactivators used, three were traditional bioactivators that usually added by local people to their compost piles while the others purchased from the market. The rates of decomposition were measured in 100 days with no significant effects observed in volume reduction using any of bioactivators. In general, 50-56 % volume reductions occurred in the first 60 days of composting process with no major volume reductions in the last 40 days. In addition there were 81-85% mass loss during composting. At the end of 100 days of composting process, all of the seven investigated treatments have the same volume reduction and mass loss. No fecal coliform destructions occur during the process since the maximum temperatures is 45oC.The results indicate that bioactivator application in municipal waste composting is ineffective in accelerating the process.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1437-1444 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | International Journal of Applied Engineering Research |
Volume | 6 |
Issue number | 12 |
Publication status | Published - 2011 |
Keywords
- Bioactivator
- Compost
- Household organic waste
- Mass loss
- Volume reduction