Compost quality assessment for the household solid wastes of Erbil City

Abstract EN

Fifty households were selected for collecting wastes from the houses in different quarters of Erbil city for seven days (from 2-October to 8-October 2015).

The average rate of solid waste generation in Erbil City was 0.632 kg/capita/day, 732.18 tons/day for all inhabitants of Erbil city.

A degradable portion of refuse estimated by 0.377 kg/capita/day which represent 60% of the solid waste composition.

Four different procedures were applied to degradation organic waste for compost production: Aerobic, anaerobic, pit and vermicomposting.

For compost quality assessment some indices were used as compost quality index (CQI), fertilizing index (FI) and clean index (CI).

The value of compost quality index was ranged from (54.73 to 321.12).

The compost quality status for all composts types falls under the extremely good category.

Fertilizing index value ranged from (3.3 to 4.06 %), while the clean index value for studied composts was 5%.

Based on FI and CI values aerobic and anaerobic composts falls under the best quality category, but pit and worm composts fall within the very good quality category.

The physicochemical analysis includes: pH, EC, TOC, TP, TN, NO3, CEC, Ash content, and K+ was measured during the study.