Evaluation of Kitchen Waste Composting and its Comparison with Compost Prepared from Municipal Solid Waste

Solid waste management is a serious issue in big urban areas due to large amounts of waste being generated. For example, in Lahore 5000 tons of solid waste is generated daily. Out of which only 70% is collected and disposed in unmonitored dumping sites, which is a cause of severe environmental impacts. Huge amount of money is involved in the collection and disposal of this solid waste. Present study is an effort to find a technique for reducing the amount of solid waste being collected and dumped. For this purpose kitchen waste composting was studied. Windrow composting was carried out from the kitchen waste in three different windrows with varying amounts of kitchen waste. One out of the three windrows was supplemented with sewage and animal manure to observe change in quality and reduction in composting period. The prepared composts and a compost sample from existing Municipal Solid Waste Composting facility, Lahore Compost (PVT) Ltd, were analyzed in the laboratory for quality. The results of the study demonstrated that the compost prepared from kitchen waste was better in terms of organic content (44.25% as compared to 26.24%) and C/N ratio (10.67:1 as compared to 6.77:1). Moreover, it was also concluded that the composting period is reduced from 3 months to 1 month by the use of sewage. If composting of kitchen waste is carried out in backyards of homes then the amount of solid waste entering the system in Lahore can be reduced by 30%, which is a substantial reduction.