An innovative design of household-scale vermicomposting bin for domestic organic waste treatment

Abstract

Today, most household solid waste has still not been classified at source, in particular in developing countries. Therefore, the process of collecting, storing, transporting, and treating of municipal domestic solid waste often generates foul odors, leachate; attracts harmful insects, rodents and causes unsanitary environment. This study proposed a bin model using Perionyx excavatus worms to both treat household organic waste and grow vegetables for household consumption. Different aeration modes for bin model and different plants, Sauropus androgynus and Chili Pepper, were tried. The results showed that the bin could operate better with the addition of a ventilation pipe. It could handle organic waste up to 111 days with an average of 0.43 ± 0.17 kg/day. The total domestic organic waste added to the bin was 45.94 kg, in which the percentage of decomposed organic waste was 90.62%. Products obtained from the studied household-scale vermicomposting bin include vermicast (5.9 kg), the biomass of P. excavatus (150 g) and the biomass of plants (1.1 kg). The model didn’t generate odors, leachate or attract harmful insects owing to the planting integration. With the amount of input organic waste rate of about 0.43 ± 0.17 kg/day, the recommended time for vermicast harvesting was 1.5 months to keep the bin core from being full. In addition, the S. Androgynus and Chili Peper were grown well from this model. Therefore, it is potential to apply this model at a household scale to collect, store, decompose the domestic organic waste and produce consumable vegetables.

Graphical abstract