EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF BIODEGRADATION PROCESSES IN FOOD WASTE WITH DIFFERENT AMOUNTS OF MOISTURE

Abstract

The today's world faces a rapid increase of population and thus a growing amount of generated waste. Unsorted municipal waste is transported to landfills. The negative environmental impact of a landfill is related with generated odours, polluted leachate and waste itself. Most of present landfills do not meet minimal environmental and sanitary requirements, i e most of landfills do not have an installed leachate collection system. In Lithuania waste management is related with many problems. The municipal waste collection system is inefficient, and the equipment is outdated. Large amounts of recyclable waste materials mixed with other wastes are still disposed in landfills. Aiming to use anaerobic digestion technologies for organic waste and minimize their negative environmental impact, recyclables need to be separated. The paper gives information about experimental investigation with fruit, vegetable and meat waste humidified with addition of moisture to 75 %, 79 % and 85 %. The experiment lasted for 60 days, and the concentration of methane and oxygen as well as temperature changes in vessels were observed. The results showed that in 50 l containers of mixed waste set with moisture to 85 % higher amounts of methane were produced than in those humidified with less water.