Compost Quality Assessment Of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), India

India produces about 3000 million tons of MSW annually out of which 40 –50 % are compostable. Compost\ud Quality plays a very important role in making MSW compost a marketable product as they are tested for\ud fertilizing parameters, heavy metal parameters and harmful pathogens. In the present study, an attempt has been\ud made to understand the quality of compost so formed by the windrow composting process from the MSW\ud obtained from Jawahar Nagar, and the vegetable waste from the commercial area Hyderabad by it analysis\ud (Laboratory as well as statistical) and the quality of composts was found out using Quality control Indices such\ud as Fertilizing Index and Clean Index.Parameters like Moisture content, pH, EC, TOC, Total Nitrogen, Total\ud Phosphorous, Total Potassium, C/N ratio, and heavy metals like Zinc, Copper, Cadmium, Nickel, Lead, and\ud chromium were analyzed and it was found that all the parameters are within the permissible limits prescribed by\ud FCO. Further Fertility Index and Clean Index were determined for both the samples and it was found that both\ud the samples had a fertility index value of 4.2 and clean index value of 4.2 for sample I and 3.6 for Sample II was\ud determined. These Indices values are used to find out the class to which the compost belongs to; and hence it\ud was found out that sample I belonged to Class A category whereas Sample II belonged to Class C category.\ud Hence it can be recommended that proper segregation of the solid waste is important from composting point of\ud view because mixed waste affects the quality of compost