350 Int. J. Environment and Waste Management, Vol. 11, No. 4, 2013 Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Extent and rate of biodegradation of different organic components in municipal solid waste Prashanth Kandakatla, Bandana Mahto and Sudha Goel* Civil Engineering Department, IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal, 721302, India Fax: 91-3222-282254 E-mail: prashanthkandakatla@gmail.com E-mail: vandanamahto@yahoo.com E-mail: sudhagoel@civil.iitkgp.ernet.in *Corresponding author Abstract: Rates and extent of biodegradability of four different organic components of municipal solid waste (leaf litter, newspaper, magazine paper and A4 sheet) were evaluated under optimum conditions. Total solids (TS) removals in biotic samples ranged from 74.7% to 78.8% while volatile solids removals ranged from 75.7% to 84.8%. Significant biodegradation of tannin-lignin was observed for all four components and removals ranged from 53% to 79.5%. Biodegradation rates were measured for all components and were found to fit second-order kinetics best. Biodegradation rate constants for all biotic samples ranged from 0.0317 to 0.0352 L/g-d. Control samples that had been autoclaved initially had higher biodegradation rates ranging from 0.0303 to 0.0537 L/g-d. Keywords: biodegradation rate; municipal solid waste; MSW; organic; paper; leaf litter; lignin; kinetics; extent; volatile solids; total solids; anaerobic; optimum. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Kandakatla, P., Mahto, B. and Goel, S. (2013) ‘Extent and rate of biodegradation of different organic components in municipal solid waste’, Int. J. Environment and Waste Management, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp.350–364. Biographical notes: Prashanth Kandakatla is a practicing Engineer with a private consulting firm. Bandana Mahto is Visiting Faculty in the Department of Water Engineering & Management, Central University of Jharkhand. Sudha Goel is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Engineering and Management Section, Civil Engineering Department, IIT Kharagpur. Her research interests include water and wastewater treatment, solid waste management, and environmental risk assessment.