Composting organic waste is a wellknown practice for converting solid wastes into a useful fertilizer. Organic wastes represent a substantial amount of the community and agricultural wastes which include green waste, sewage sludge, food processing waste and palm oil milling wastes. In composting, there may be problems with stench, leachate, vermin and fl ies in particular sites, but the cost of transport would preclude moving the bulky low-value wastes to a ‘better’ place for composting. In addition, there may also be high losses of trace elements, minerals and other beneficial compounds by the inability to separate out and differently treat the components of the organic waste. The conventional composting technologies are only effective for the less lignified materials, e.g. leaves and stems, but are rather unsuitable for the more lignified stuff like oil palm empty fruit bunches (EFB). The constraint on moving the raw materials means that the composting should be done in situ, in the field where the wastes are generated, or where the compost is to be used so that only minimal transport is used.

Main Research: Ir Mohamad Sulong