CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

2.1 CONCEPTUAL LITERATURE

According to The Philippine Star, Simeon (2019) in her study revealed that

Vegetables rot in Benguet due to oversupply. Benguet Farmers Marketing

Cooperative general manager, said some farmers are left with no choice but to

throw away their excess produce as oversupply of vegetables by as much as 300

percent resulted in a drop of prices.

As stated by August Balanoy, farmers harvested around 3.5 million kilos

per day since the start of the year. The normal daily harvest is only 1.2 million

kilos. Balanoy said the glut was due to weather conditions in the third and last

quarter of 2018, which affected production and marketing schedules. Benguet

farmers also called on the government to build bigger processing facilities to

address oversupply. Composting the surplus vegetables may help in the stated

problem.

2.2 COMPOSTING PROCESS

Compost is the single most important supplement you can give your

garden. It’s a simple way to add nutrient-rich humus to your lawn or garden that

fuels plant growth and restores vitality to depleted soil. It's also free, easy to

make, and good for the environment. But composting also has other benefits.

Composting is a microbiological conversion of organic residuesof plant

and animal origin to manure rich in humus and nutrients by various micro-
organisms including bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes in the presence of

oxygen. During the process it releases by products such as carbon dioxide, water

and heat.

The essential elements required by the composting microorganisms are

carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and moisture. If any of these elements are lacking, or if

they are not provided in the proper proportion, the microorganisms will not

flourish and will not provide adequate heat. A composting process that operates

at optimum performance will convert organic matter into stable compost that is

odor and pathogen free, and a poor breeding substrate for flies and other insects.

In addition, it will significantly reduce the volume and weight of organic waste as

the composting process converts much of the biodegradable component to

gaseous carbon dioxide

2.3 RESEARCH LITERATURE

Composting is not an easy work specially when dealing with time to

complete the process. People who have been doing it for a long time are already

used in dealing with the process.

The advantages of the Rotary drum composter are mostly applied for the

farmers. The use of this composter eases the labor, time and surplus product

allocation. However, some people still consider the traditional way of composting,

this is because the bacteria will be accumulated properly due to the period of

time.
2.4 RELATED PROJECTS AND STUDIES

The Rotary drum composting of different organic waste mixtures in the

year 2009 are studied to identify which among 3 mixtures will reach a better

maturity after 20 days.

The Rotary drum composting of vegetable waste and tree leaves are High

rate composting studies on institutional waste, i.e. vegetable wastes, tree leaves,

etc., were conducted on a demonstration-scale (3.5 m3) rotary drum composter

by evaluating changes in some physico-chemical and biological parameters.

During composting, higher temperature (60–70 °C) at inlet zone and (50–60 °C)

at middle zone were achieved which resulted in high degradation in the drum. As

a result, all parameters including TOC, C/N ratio, CO2 evolution and coliforms

were decreased significantly within few days of composting. Within a week

period, quality compost with total nitrogen (2.6%) and final total phosphorus (6

g/kg) was achieved; but relatively higher final values of fecal coliforms and CO2

evolution, suggested further maturation. Thus, two conventional composting

methods namely windrow (M1) and vermicomposting (M2) tried for maturation of

primary stabilized compost. By examining these methods, it was suggested that

M2 was found suitable in delivering fine grained, better quality matured compost

within 20 days of maturation period.

Ref:

http://www.ecochem.com/t_compost_faq2.html

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.839.9072&rep=rep1&type=pdf
https://www.philstar.com/nation/2019/01/11/1883973/vegetables-rot-benguet-due-
oversupply

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0fe6/b831f9a1be1fe5a675afb67b38aaec875a96.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960852409009067#aep-keywords-id14