GMSARN International Conference on Energy Security and Climate Change: Problems & Issues in GMS 25-27 Nov. 2009 Organic Waste Management by BiobiN Compostor: Case Study of Warinchamrap Municipality Rungnapa Tubnonghee, Sompop Sanongraj, and Wipada Sanongraj Abstract—The objective of this research is to study organic waste management by composting using BiobiN compostor. Approximately 850 kilograms/cycle of organic waste was collected in Warinchamrap municipality and then sent to compost in the BiobiN compostor. The amount of 1,700 kilograms of compost was obtained for each cycle. The results showed that compost reached stability after the 65 th day of composting. Physical characteristics of compost were observed. It has soil-like smell with dark-brown to black color. Also, there were no fungi-like and white powders in the compost.The elevated temperature at above 55°C was observed in the period of the 6 th -15 th day of composting. The pH varied from 5.5 to 6.9 for the whole period of composting. In conclusions, all physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of compost meet the standards and criterion issued by the Department of Agriculture (DOA) after 65 days of composting. The numbers of microorganism and pathogenic bacteria were reduced and destroyed as compared to standard of DOA. However, the composting temperature above 60°C for a period of over 3 weeks was required for a safety concern and needed to be futher investigated. Keywords— Compost, Composting, Organic waste, BiobiN Compostor, Warinchamrap Municipality. 1. INTRODUCTION Municipal solid waste (MSW) is all of the wastes arising from human activities [1]. The population of Warinchamrap municipality area has around 30,000. The total amount of generated MSW is about 30 tons each day. The MSW compositions can be mainly divided into two parts: burnable and non-burnable. The burnable solid wastes are organic wastes 38.5%, papers 5.5%, plastic bottles 5.5%, plastic bags 12.6%, wood-soils 9.0%, leather-rubbers 4.0%, foam boxes 2.0%, and others 2.0%, respectively. The non-burnable solid wastes are glass bottles 13.0% and aluminums cans 1.0%. Organic solid wastes are major component of the MSW stream and suitable composting substrates. Therefore, composting is selected to handle organic solid wastes for decreasing expenditure of the sanitary landfill of Warinchamrap municipality. Conceptually, organic solid waste is separated at major sources including household, canteen, food shop, restaurant, and market [2]. Project of Organic waste composting (OWC) was set up in 2005 by the helping education and cooperation from Japan Bank international Cooperation (JBIC), Saga University and Chulalungkorn University. This project studied about change of composts in physical, chemical, and biological characteristics in a laboratory scale. The organic waste compost was prepared with Hachigama’s formula from Mr.Toshiaki Fukuda concept. Results of this project found that, the 100 th organic waste compost had good characteristic and met the standard and criterion issued by the Department of Agriculture (2005) [3]. However, the composting could not control temperature above 60°C for 3 weeks in order to significantly destroy and reduce number of microorganism and pathogenic bacteria [4, 5]. In principal, the requirement of compost for safe application in soil is its degree of stability or maturity, which implies stable organic matter content, and the absence of phytotoxic compounds and plant or animal pathogen [6, 7, 8]. Recently, MSW management involves advanced technologies that offer more protection to the environment and human health [9]. In 2008, Warinchamrap municipality launched a program to separate food waste, or food swill at source to compost in BiobiN [10]. BiobiN is reactor for composting (7 cubic meter container type equipped with air blower). The composting in BiobiN was controlled conditions for stability and maturity compost. The organic waste compost was observed to meet the standard and criterion issued by the Department of Agriculture (2005) after 100 days of composting. It reached to stability after the 45 th day of composting. As following the previous work [10], this study provide the monitoring and investigation of organic waste compost for practically use in a local area. om Rungnapa Tubnonghee (corresponding author) is with the Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Ubonratchathani University, Warinchamrap, Ubonratchathani, Thailand 34190. Phone: +66-4-526-9680; Fax: +66-4-532-3787; E- mail: rung_mpa11@hotmail.c . Sompop Sanongraj is with the Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, and National Center of Excellence for Environmental and Hazardous Waste Management (EHWM), Ubonratchathani University, Warinchamrap, Ubonratchathani, Thailand 34190. Wipada Sanongraj is with the Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, and National Center of Excellence for Environmental and Hazardous Waste Management (EHWM), Ubonratchathani University, Warinchamrap, Ubonratchathani, Thailand 34190. 2. METERIAL AND METHODS 2.1 Composting of organic wastes and experimental details. The composting mixtures were prepared in the following proportions. The organic wastes composts (OWC) were consisted of food wastes (30% by wt), shredded yard wastes (20% by wt), the local raw materials (40% by wt) and soil inoculums from a local forest (10% by wt). The Local raw materials were mixed from sawdust (20 % by wt), rice husk (10 % by wt ), and rice brian (10 % by wt). The OWC had total weight 1,700 kilograms (100 % by wt. on wet basis). The OWC was uniformly mixed and put in BiobiN reactor. BiobiN had approximately 2.0x3.5x2.0 meters (WxLxH). It was 1