Composting of Food Waste With Different Amendments and Methods: a Scoping Review

Go, Li Ying (2022) Composting of Food Waste With Different Amendments and Methods: a Scoping Review. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

With the rapid growth of the human population across the world, egregious amounts of food waste was generated and post various social, economic and environmental issues in the society. Composting has been developed as one of the most promising solid waste disposal methods for safe treatment strategies as well as its feasibility and eco-friendly properties. Composting converts food waste into useful compost for agricultural application while reducing the food waste at the same time. This project aims: (1) To examine the potential of producing high quality food waste compost with different amendments; (2) To evaluate different composting methods in terms of their advantages and limitations. This review study was conducted by using PubMed, Science Direct and NCBI electronic databases; more than 100 publications were screened; and papers of high relevance were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria and keywords. This study showed that food waste, Chinese medicinal herbal residues and sawdust with the mixing ratio of 1:1:1 is able to accelerate the composting process, elongated the thermophilic phase, improve the germination index and is a potential biological anti-pathogenic agent, thus producing a higher quality of food waste compost. Besides, the food waste amended with 10 % biochar and 10 % zeolites, respectively able to improve the compost quality by enhancing the degradation rate of organic matter, elongating the thermophilic phase and retaining higher concentration of ammonium and nitrate in the compost as well as to reduce environment pollution by reducing nitrogen losses as ammonia to the atmosphere. The advantages and limitations of different composting methods including vermicomposting, windrow composting, aerated static pile composting and in-vessel composting were also evaluated. In conclusion, food waste management can be done through the composting process and the resulting end product known as compost can be used as a soil conditioner and crop promoter in the agricultural field. Amendments can be used to improve the food waste compost quality by enhancing its nutritional content as well as reduce the environmental pollution by reducing ammonia generated during composting