Composting of floral waste by using indigenously isolated microbial consortium: An approach towards the Environment sustainability and waste management
Abstract
In India huge number of flowers are offered in temple creating a large amount of flower waste. The temple waste is released in the water bodies or dumped at the available places of land which creates severe environmental pollution and health hazards. Floral waste is biodegradable and contains elements required for growth of microorganisms. The present study focused on the use of Temple floral waste extract for preparation of microbial nutrient media in order to cultivate bacteria (pH7.4) and fungi (pH 5.4). Soil sample was used for screening of microorganisms capable of degrading the floral waste. Thus, in the present study instead of using conventional microbial media we have used the flower waste media to develop microbial consortium for degradation of floral waste. On the basis of capability to produce variety of hydrolytic enzymes two sets of consortia were developed and tested for development of compost as against the control without the microbial consortia. Physicochemical analysis of mature compost revealed that floral waste compost prepared by using the microbial consortium is enriched with the Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium and Magnesium. The mature compost developed using the microbial consortia has the potential to support the growth of tomato plants. This method is cost effective as well as pollution free. Thus, it can be promoted as potential mechanism to maintain the environmental sustainability at wider scales.
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Introduction
Waste is defined as unwanted, unusable material and is regarded as a substance which is of no use. Waste disposal is the major concern of the society. If it is not disposed properly that leads to deterioration of environment. Industrial, commercial, agricultural and domestic are different sources of waste generation.
Floral waste is generated by various sources like Temple waste, marriage ceremony, hotels, various others cultural and religious ceremony. Everyday the flowers offered in the temples or used in the various ceremony or functions left unused and later on it converted in to waste and it becomes the major constituents of municipal solid waste (Singh et al. 2013). Most of this waste is generally neglected and get added to water bodies which lead to water pollution.
By considering the characteristics of floral waste as it is rich inorganic compound, macronutrients and micronutrients, composting is the best solution for proper disposal of floral waste. Composting is defined as the natural biological decomposition of organic matter under self heating, aerobic and moist conditions to produce a stable nutrient enriched product which is used as organic manure (Bustamante et al.2009). Thus floral waste can be converted in to agriculturally useful organic fertilizers which in turn have the potential to reduce the dependency on non-renewable chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Most of the time during the process of composting bulking agents like wood shaving, dry leaves, newspaper, wheat bran, Pumice are added to support the free passage of air during the composting. In this study we have added cow dung as a bulking agent (Sharma et al., 2017)
Degradation of floral waste is avery slow process as compared to kitchen waste degradation (Jadhav et al., 2013). By considering this we have made attempt to develop consortia having potential to degrade the floral waste. The exploitation of the metabolic versatility of microorganisms is advantageous in biological waste treatment this led to shortening of the time required for composting.
In this study, attempt was made to design the successful composting system by using the microbial consortium isolated by using the floral extract agar. Further the potential of floral waste compost to support the growth of plant was studied by pot assay.
Conclusion
We could design the successful composting system by using the microbial consortium isolated by using the floral extract agar. Further the potential of floral waste compost to support the growth of plant was studied by pot assay. Thus this process has not only contributed for waste management rather it has provided nutrient rich compost which can be used for variety of plantation. Floral waste compost prepared by using the microbial consortium is enriched with the Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Pottasium, Calcium and Mangnesium. This method is cost effective as well as pollution free. Thus it can be promoted as potential mechanism to maintain the environmental sustainability at wider scales.
