Development of Advanced Composting Technologies for Municipal Organic Waste Treatment in Small Communities in Newfoundland and Labrador

• Main Authors: Zhang, Baiyu, Lye, Leonard, Kazemi, Khoshrooz, Lin, Weiyun
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: The Harris Centre 2013
• Subjects: Newfoundland; Canada
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/8131/; https://research.library.mun.ca/8131/1/11-12-WMARF-Final-Zhang.pdf; http://www.mun.ca/harriscentre/reports/arf/2011/11-12-WMARF-Final-Zhang.pdf

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is one of the major fractions of the solid waste in Canada. From 2002 to 2008, Canadian municipal solid waste disposal has increased from 769 kilograms to 777 kilograms per capita. Among the provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) has one of the highest waste disposal levels per capita in the country. According to the Multi Materials Stewardship Board (MMSB), it is estimated that more than 400,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) materials are generated each year in this province and organic waste makes up as much as 30% of all waste generated. To properly manage MSW generated, the Provincial Solid Waste Management Strategy has been identified in 2002, aiming to reduce the amount of waste going into landfills by 50 per cent. Composting has been regarded as an efficient and effective way to deal with the organic waste and helps work toward achieving the provincial 50 per cent waste reduction goal. It also creates rich organic soil that can enhance lawns and gardens. Therefore, MSW composting has been listed as one of the six new environmental standards applied to new waste management systems in NL. However, NL comprises more than 200 small communities without access to the central composting facility. For those areas, small-scale composting technologies are desired to manage their MSW so as to reduce collection and transport costs and eliminate the other environmental contamination during transportation. Composting is a biological process that is affected by chemical and physical factors. The lack of understanding of the complexity of biological, chemical, and physical processes can result in malfunction of a composting system. The microbial and physicochemical environment in composting can be affected by the diversity of microbial population, temperature, bulking agent, aeration, and chemical properties of raw material such as the C/N ratio and moisture content. Interactions among biological, chemical, and physical factors are crucial to the comprehensive understanding of the ...