Transforming Municipal Waste into a Valuable Soil Conditioner through Knowledge-Based Resource-Recovery Management

Mh Golabi Kirk Johnson,Takeshi Fujiwara Eri Ito

doi:10.4172/2252-5211.1000140

Abstract

Guam is a small, isolated tropical island in the western Pacific with a population of over 160,000 people. Although population growth and life style have been shown to have strong effects on the character and generation of waste, very little is known about consumption patterns and behavior of the people of Guam in this regard. Currently landfilling is the only discard method available to the island. Placement of huge volumes of organic waste material in landfills not only causes environmental problems for the island but in fact constitutes loss of valuable resources that could be composted and made available for land application as a soil amendment in forest lands, farm fields, and home gardens. Composting on the other hand reduces both the volume and the mass of the raw material while transforming it into a valuable soil conditioner. Here we present some of the results of survey questionnaires that was developed and conducted over the past two years that is anticipated to help waste operating managers and decision makers to determine societal consumption behavior and residential life style as the first step toward development of an effective waste-management strategy for the island of Guam. In this regards, we are also presenting an example of a large scale composting method developed in Isfahan, Iran, for recycling of organic wastes of municipal origin.

Highlights

Rapid increases in the volume and variety of solid and hazardous waste as a result of continuous economic growth, urbanization, and industrialization are a burgeoning problem for national and local governments, which must ensure effective and sustainable management of waste [1]
As reported by the United Nations Environmental Program [1], developing countries face difficult challenges to proper management of their waste; most effort is devoted to reducing the final volume and to generating sufficient funds for waste management
If most of the waste could be diverted through material and resource recovery, a substantial reduction in final volumes of waste could be achieved, and the recovered material and resources could be used to generate revenue to fund waste management

Summary

Introduction

Rapid increases in the volume and variety of solid and hazardous waste as a result of continuous economic growth, urbanization, and industrialization are a burgeoning problem for national and local governments, which must ensure effective and sustainable management of waste [1]. A comprehensive waste management would allow for the use of recyclable as well as green and other organic refuse that is currently discarded in landfills as sources of producing organic soil conditioner for a sustainable agricultural cropping system in Guam and the other island in the Micronesian region.

Results

Conclusion