Abstract:
Abstract
Solid waste has always been a neglected aspect of management in the society which has now become a burning and visible issue. Globally, the academic institutions have realized its importance and are working on the slogan "zero waste". Being located at NUST, IESE has also started thinking on these lines. The current research study was carried out with an objective to address the concerns of solid waste generated at university campus. In order to find the rate of generation, waste was collected from campus and segregated to find its composition and its total weight. The results of this survey revealed that waste generated from NUST, H-12 campus is approximately 950 kg/day (2010). As major portion of university's solid waste is organic in nature, so the best option to deal with it is composting. The process of composting was carried out in windrows and slurry was added as starter to one of the windrows. Compost formation process completed in about 30 days. Composting windrows were monitored for various parameters like temperature (40-470C), pH (7-8.3), and moisture content (maintained at 55%). The nutrient analysis of compost show that phosphorus contents from windrows was 0.598% and 0.615%, while potassium content was 1% and 1.3%. To determine the quality of compost, germination tests were also performed to compare it with other kinds of composts available in the market/ old dump site. The results of germination test revealed that the quality of compost produced from our compost (86%) was better than that of cow-dung compost (80%), commercial compost (80%) and compost from an old dump site
(66.6%).
