Production of Vermicompost from Temple Waste (Nirmalya): A Case Study
Journal Title: Universal Journal of Environmental Research and Technology - Year 2011, Vol 1, Issue 2
Abstract
Vermicomposting is the phenomenon of compost formation by earthworms. Earthworms play an important role in the cycling of plant nutrients, turnover the organic matter and maintain the soil structure. The temple wastes consist of vegetable material (mainly flowers, leaves, fruits, sugar, jaggery etc.), milk and milk products, grains and water most of which are biodegradable and contain elements required for growth of microorganisms and the temple wastes are released in the water bodies or dumped at the available places of land which creates severe environmental pollution and health hazards ,hence it was thought to attempt use temple waste for ecofriendly treatment methods like Biomethanation and vermicomposting. The effluent of biomethanation upon mixing with biodegradable organic solids serves as good raw material for vermicomposting. In the present studies vermicomposting, the effluent from biogas digester (biomethanation) run on Ganesh temple waste (Sangli, Maharashtra) was admixed with temple waste solids and cattle dung and after partial the decomposition for 30 days at 30Oc, it was used to fill up 2 kg capacity plastic tubs and subjected for optimization of parameters like moisture content, particle size, pH of material and temperature of vermicomposting using Eudrilus eugeniae earth worm species. It was found that 25oC temperature, pH 8.0, 1-2mm particle size and 80% moisture content were optimum parameters of vermicomposting. It was further found that vermicompost obtained by above method was rich in percent carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium content i.e. 28, 1.58, 0.33 and 0.28, respectively. The pot culture studies using five flowering plants (Gulab, Jaswand and Mogra varieties) of the test set (using prepared vermicompost as fertilizer) used in the studies showed good enhancement of growth in terms of height, flowering time as well as number of flowers produced as compared to control sets(without use of vermicompost as fertilizer). Thus, vermicomposting of temple waste is an excellent and ecofriendly method of temple waste management.
Authors and Affiliations
Gurav M. V. and Pathade G. R.
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