VOL.46 NO.3 2015 AGRICULTURAL MECHANIZATION IN ASIA, AFRICA, AND LATIN AMERICA 57 by Said Elshahat Abdallah Associate Professor saidelshahat@agr.kfs.edu.eg Kitchen Bio-Wastes Management by Vermicompost- ing Technology Abstract Rapid urbanization has led to dumping of kitchen wastes causing a serious threat to the environment. A kitchen waste is undertaken in this study due to its majority in municipal wastes and the disposal process of it is costly. Two types of vermireactors (with and without trays) at three different areal load- ings running under three different evaporative cooling vermicompos- ters (passive, direct active and indi- rect active) were operated for seven weeks experimentation period. The substrate moisture content and its temperature were monitored regu- larly and the vermireactors were evaluated weekly for the assess- ment of temporal changes of earth- worms. Transformation of kitchen wastes into valuable added product, through vermicomposting process, by using Earthworms (Eisenia foe- tida) that were introduced at the initial stocking density of 26.45 ± 1.77 mg/cm 3 (1.85 ± 0.12 kg/m 2 ). The experiment revealed that direct evaporative cooling vermicomposter reaches the optimum ambient condi- tion; relative humidity of 70-80 % and air temperatures of 20-27 ºC. So both vermireactors have the highest vermicast production of 0.28-0.36 g-cast/g-worm/day, but the vermire- actor with trays and areal loading of 743.7 cm 2 /kg of feed was dramati- cally higher than the output in the corresponding vermireactors with- out trays. Vermicomposting results had signiicant differences between all treatments (P < 0.05). Keywords: vermicomposting pro- cess, earthworms, kitchen wastes, vermireactor. Introduction Vermicomposting is the result of combined activity by microor- ganisms and earthworms (Singh et al., 2011) and does not involve a thermophilic stage (Dominguez, 2004) in contrast to composting. Composting and vermicompost- ing are ecologically and economi- cally sustainable technologies and have been widely used (Sinha et al., 2010). Composting involves the accelerated degradation of organic matter by microorganisms under controlled conditions, in which the organic material undergoes a char- acteristic thermophilic stage that allows sanitization of the waste by the elimination of pathogenic mi- croorganisms (Lung et al., 2001). However, composting requires long duration and frequent turning of the material which results in loss of nutrients during the prolonged pro- cess (Eghball et al., 1997). The high temperatures (> 60 ºC) associated with the process are also known to inhibit decomposition (Bardos and Lopez-Real, 1991). Vermicom- posting involves bio-oxidation and Wael Mohamed Elmessery Lecturer Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafr Elsheikh 33516, EGYPT Nomenclature PEVR Passive evaporative cooling vermicomposter DEVR Direct active evaporative cooling vermicomposter IEVR Indirect active evaporative cooling vermicomposter PEVRT Passive evaporative cooling vermireactors with trays PEVRWT Passive evaporative cooling vermireactors without trays DEVRT Direct active evaporative cooling vermireactors with trays DEVRWT Direct active evaporative cooling vermireactors without trays IEVRT indirect active evaporative cooling vermireactors with trays IEVRWT indirect active evaporative cooling vermireactors without trays T With trays WT Without trays Tr Tray Re Vermireactor