Home and community composting for on-site treatment of urban organic waste: perspective for Europe and Canada

Abstract

Management of municipal solid waste (MSW) is a challenge faced by urban centres worldwide, including the European Union (EU) and Canada, as a result of urbanization and economic prosperity accelerating the generation of municipal solid wastes (MSW) along with its organic fraction. Within a concept of waste recovery, source separation and on-site treatment of urban organic waste (UOW) can resolve major economic issues and faced by urban centres along with environmental and social issues associated with landfilling. In this context and as compared to the traditional landfilling practice (Base Sce), this paper examines on-site UOW composting strategies using a combination of centralized composting facilities (CCF), community composting centres (CCC) and home composting (HC) (Sce 1, 2 and 3). This study consists of a feasibility and economic study based on available data and waste management costs. This study indicates that on-site treatment of UOW using practices such as home and community composting can lower management costs by 50, 37 and 34 % for the rich European countries (annual GDP over $25000 US), the poorer European countries (annual GDP under $25000 US), and Canada, respectively. Furthermore, on-site composting can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40 % for Europe and Canada, despite gas capture practices on landfill sites.However, the performance of home composters and the quality of the compost products are issues to be further addressed for the successful implementation of UOW on-site composting.

Physico-chemical and biological characteristics of compost from decentralised composting programmes

“…Compared to other biowaste treatments, such as industrial composting, incineration, landfilling or wastewater drainage, home composting is regarded as being an equivalent or even a better option with regard to sustainability (Chan et al, 2011;Andersen et al, 2011;Lleó et al, 2013). Even for large cities, Adhikari et al (2010) estimated a potential for decentralised composting systems to accommodate up to 50% of generated municipal organic waste thus reducing costs and greenhouse gas emissions by 34% to 50% and 40%, respectively, as compared to standard landfill disposal. The compost generated from local decentralised composters is in most cases consumed locally in domestic garden production of food and non-food crops (Adhikari et al, 2010;Scheromm, in press) with obvious beneficial carbon footprint implications.…”

“…As pointed out by Lleó et al (2013), home composting has not been studied extensively from a technical and scientific perspective, while Adhikari et al (2010) indicated the need for more studies into performance and quality of compost products from home and community composters. Current limited literature suggests that the properties of home composts are within the compost quality limits and similar to industrial compost from source separated organic waste (Martínez-Blanco et al, 2010;Andersen et al, 2011;Karnchanawong and Suriyanon, 2011), except for moisture content, which was usually higher.…”

“…Even for large cities, Adhikari et al (2010) estimated a potential for decentralised composting systems to accommodate up to 50% of generated municipal organic waste thus reducing costs and greenhouse gas emissions by 34% to 50% and 40%, respectively, as compared to standard landfill disposal. The compost generated from local decentralised composters is in most cases consumed locally in domestic garden production of food and non-food crops (Adhikari et al, 2010;Scheromm, in press) with obvious beneficial carbon footprint implications.…”

Fungi open new possibilities for anaerobic fermentation of organic residues

“…Amounts of municipal solid waste (MSW) as well as of organic waste are closely correlated to gross domestic product (GDP) and are therefore increasing sharply in many countries [2]. Household waste is collected regularly in most countries at public expense and subsequently incinerated or landfilled [3].…”

Feasibility and Performance Evaluation of Different Low-Tech Composter Prototypes

“…Particularly, decentralised composting is also an innovative way to involve waste generators as key actors in treatment operations. This technology also contributes to reducing waste transportation, treatment costs and landfilling volumes, as it was demonstrated in several life cycle assessments reported in literature [4][5][6][7].…”