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Changes in Characteristic of Municipal Solid Waste by Bulking Agent In-vessel Composting: Critical Review

Nabam Rich, Sunil Kumar & Ajay Bharti

The trend of treating the Municipal solid waste (MSW) is less compared to the dumping of the potential nutrient rich compost into land filling in India. Composting is increasingly considered a good way for recycling the surplus MSW to a stabilised and sanitized end product for agriculture. However, high quality compost should be produced to overcome the cost of composting which can be achieved through controlled composting in in-vessel system of composting but the initial cost is huge The first part of this paper explains the basic concepts of the composting process and how MSW characteristics (like temperature, aeration rate, moisture content, porosity, C/N ratio, microoraganism) can influence its performance. The nitrogen losses (which directly reduce the nutrient content), organic matter humification and compost maturity which affect the quality of composts produced by MSW composting are also discussed in this paper. The use of an adequate bulking agent of different types and size for reducing N-losses and the necessity of standardizing the maturity indices due to their great importance amongst compost quality criteria are also discussed.