Community based kitchen waste manaement: a mass balance approach to assess potential of anaerobic digestion
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Solid waste generation is a continuously increasing problem in India and requires effective management initiatives with attractive incentives to propagate the strategy being adopted. Anaerobic digestion of the organic-rich fraction of MSW is a potential solution to the management of waste with the possibility of energy recovery. Kitchen waste generated in significant quantities from community kitchens on a daily basis have the potential to generate biogas which in turn can be used to substitute fuel for cooking. The kitchen waste collected from NEERI campus contained up to 21 % ± 7.6 TS and 94 % ± 4.35 VS of total solids. Elemental profiling provided the average stoichiometric composition of waste. Buswell's model was applied to estimate the potential of the collected waste to generate biogas and be used as an alternative cooking fuel. With an estimated 14.9 tons of kitchen waste, a total saving of around up to $ 1180 per year is envisaged in fuel savings.