Need for Composting of Household Waste at Community Level

Abstract

With steeply increasing population and high rate of consumption, the household waste generated is also increasing. Lack of efficient management of waste, owing to growing pile of garbage leads to increase in heights of landfills, in which more than half of the waste comes from household and is biodegradable. In USA, around 27% of all solid waste comprising of food scraps and yard waste ends up in landfills [1]. Similarly, India generates around 62 million tonnes of waste annually with nearly 50% of total waste being organic and instead of being composted, it ends up in the landfills [2]. Landfills are not only eye soring sights, but they also amount to third biggest cause of greenhouse gas emissions in India [2]. This calls for need of composting household waste at community level to tackle the problem at the source of generation. This paper aims at identifying current practices for composting in India, and identify challenges faced by authorities and individuals while implementing composting initiatives. This paper seeks to find answers to the posed research questions revolving around composting challenges with a possible suggestion for implementing composting activities in schools, household complexes and community parks and gardens.