Treatment of food waste by using indigenous microorganisms (IMO)

Abstract

Systematic and efficient solid waste management is important to ensure that it will not give a negative effect to the environment, human and other living things on the earth. The knowledge of chemical and physical characteristic are important to make sure solid waste is well managed. Therefore, this research was carried out to investigate treatment of food waste by using indigenous microorganisms. Indigenous microorganisms are organisms that enrich the nutrient quality of the soil. Composting was applied in order to achieve the objective. The mix of IMO 5, food waste and Chicken dung was evaluated using the ratio 1:1:5, 1 kg of IMO 5, 1 kg of food waste and 5 kg of chicken dung. Moisture content, temperature, pH value, microbial identifies, and gas analyzer was monitored during the composting process. Production of compost within 40 days showed that the final temperature varies between 48 °C to 29 °C. Moisture content dropped from the initial range 59.8 % to 22.01 % and pH value of the compost also drop from the initial value of pH 9 to pH 7.10. The C/N ratio for mature was 6:1 and N content was 0.42 %. Phosphorus content was 8.04 %, while K content was 17.4 %. The microbe present in indigenous microorganisms is bacillus spp. For the concentration of methane is 0.4 %, for carbon dioxide is 1.0 %, for oxygen is 19.0 %, for carbon monoxide is 1 ppm and of hydrogen sulfide is 1 ppm. Mature compost had a dark brown color and earthy smell. The entire characteristics were important to determine mature compost.