Utilization of cow dung residues of biogas plant for sustainable development of a rural community Molla Rahman Shaibur a, ⁎ , Humaira Husain b , Samsul Huda Arpon a a Department of Environmental Science and Technology, Jashore University of Science and Technology, Jashore 7408, Bangladesh b School of Business and Economics, North South University, Dhaka 1229, Bangladesh ABSTRACT ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 28 August 2020 Received in revised form 4 January 2021 Accepted 18 January 2021 Available online xxxx JEL Codes: Q53 Q20 Q01 Ziala Village of Satkhira District in Bangladesh is well known for cow dung management and biogas production. Biogas plants produce huge quantities of organic residues and biogas. Cow dung is widely used in the plant as a part of waste management and biogas production. The residues are used as organic fertilizer and biogas is used as fuel in the Ziala Village. Therefore, the study was conducted to observe the effectiveness of using cow dung residues produced in biogas plants and its subsequent impacts on socio-economic profile. The study was based on face to face interview of ran- domly selected dairy farmers in 2014. Twelve representative samples of biogas plants were randomly selected for interviewing. Findings suggested that renewable energy transfer system in the form of biogas plant was successful in converting cow dung into energy and nutrient rich organic fertilizer, which reduced the cost of purchasing chemical fertilizer for plant owners. Renewable energy transfer plants noticeably improved the overall cooking environment of the biogas digesters and reduced the time needed to collect firewood. This facilitates livestock management and pres- ervation of forest resources. Biogas plants eventually contributed to elevate environmental condition and resource re- covery which ultimately improved socio-economic profiles in terms of occupational distribution and educational attainment of the participating households. However, agricultural wastes and cow dung were not optimally managed by some households in surveyed area. This causes environmental degradation in terms of water and air pollution in the study area. Keywords: Biogas plant Energy Environment Socio-economic advantages 1. Introduction Satkhira is a District in Southwestern part of Bangladesh. It is in Khulna Division, lies along the border with West Bengal (India) and is on the bank of the Arpangachhia River. Satkhira District consists of 7 Sub-Districts of which Tala is one of them (Shaibur et al. 2017; Shaibur et al. 2019). The study area Ziala Village is in Tala Sub-District. The Ziala Village is famous for the Ghosh community engaged with extensive dairy farming. Almost all of the people of Ziala Village are engaged with dairy farming and pro- ducing huge quantities of milk. They produce sweet dishes, cheese and but- ter for the maximum parts of the country. Sometimes the sweet dishes are exported abroad and used to earn foreign currency. Dairy farming produces not only milk and meat, but also huge quantities of cow dung. This cow dung creates problem in the environment if it is not managed properly (Pongracz and Pohjola 2004; Gupta et al. 2016; Tallou et al. 2020). But the organic waste cow dung could be converted into resource by applying proper recycling system (Brown 2003; Gupta et al. 2016; Saidan et al. 2017). It is well known that waste management helps to clean up the phys- ical environment and the society may get benefit from solid waste manage- ment (Molla and Huq 2002). Waste produced from livestock farming significantly enhanced agriculture and the farming showed sustainable ag- riculture compare to conventional agriculture (He 2020). Cow dung pro- duced from dairy farming is a cheap and easily available bioresource is used as bio-fertilizer, biopesticide, burning fuel, as cleansing agent and as mosquito repellent (Dhama et al. 2005; Gupta et al. 2016). Any type of organic waste could be used for biogas production and vermicomposting. Generally, vermicompost is produced by using earth- worm and cow dung for nutrient recycling, is used in agricultural fields for crop production (Joseph et al. 2020). Biogas technology is considered as one of the best technologies for treating organic waste to recover both materials and energy from organic waste (Pandyaswargo et al. 2019). Using of agricultural wastes for biogas and bio-diesel production through recycling is a promising approach that will have economic, environmental and social impact (Elsayed et al. 2020). Biogas production is highly Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021) 100026 Acronyms: CD, Cow dung;; ER, Efficiency Rate; GS, Grameen Shakti; IDCOL, Infrastructure Development Company Limited; IFRD, International Fuel Research and Development; Kg, Kilogram; LGED, Local Government Engineering Department; LPG, Liquid Petroleum Gas; R & D, Research and Development; RETS, Renewable Energy Transfer System,; RSPM, Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter.. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: shaibur75@just.edu.bd (M.R. Shaibur). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crsust.2021.100026 2666-0490/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). 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