Business Process for Waste Re-Use For Composting

The Case of Green-Gro Limited

1- Waste

a) Domestic

Kitchen - separated

Meat and fish

Fruit and vegetable

Grey water – clothes and utensils washing

Bathroom – grey water – personal washing

Toilet – urine and faeces

General – paper, garden green waste, glass, tins, plastic …

b) AgricultureWeeding

Post-harvestRice, cocoa bean, coco pea, other bean and peanut husks, etc.

Plant residue left standing maize, rice, all bean stalks

AnimalsCow, pig and goat dung and droppings

Chicken coop litters, droppings including sawdust, etc.

2- Re-use Option, Green-Gro Ltd choice

Waste easier to collect

Transportation

Location – predominant waste

Best combination for highest NPK and minerals for soil aeration.

3- Composting, Working practical experience

Rodale Institute, Pennsylvania USA (Funded USAID, TIP Programme)

Travelling through many towns in many US states studying the different systems for Urban Waste Management (Funded USAID)

Yorkshire Water Company, UK, turning de-watered sewage sludge into compost (self funded)

London Borough Recycling Association (LARAC) UK, waste separation, management, composting, biogas (self funded)

Visiting towns in Denmark, urban waste management, windrow composting outdoors, indoors with spent mushroom litter (funded DANIDA)

Ontario, Canada, garden and foresting green waste (self funded)`

4- Physical requirements

Minimum land for commercial product, 5 acres

Access to clean water, piped, river, lake, well.

Electricity or generator for pumping water

Compacted hard standing, support – large, heavy trucks, ideal being concrete.

5- Green-Gro Limited adaptation of - book learning - education to gain the experience to work with local conditionsa) Production materials

Accra – sawdust – (soft woods) - brewery wash and liquor

Tema – Cocoa bean husk, cow dung

Dawhenya – rice husk – cow dung – good droppings – chicken coop litters

Takoradi – sawdust (soft woods) – cocoa bean husks – caw dung, chicken coop litter

Kade – palm nut husks – sawdust (soft woods) – chicken coop litter – pig dung

Kumasi – sawdust (soft woods) – chicken coop litter – brewery mash and liquor – pig dung.

Tamale – rice husks – groundnut husks – cow dung.

b) Method Proportional mix of materials

Heating – test with hand or 1 meter long lance thermometer

Water and turn to cool and moisten every 3-4 weeks depending on the weather, and until heap stops heating up.

c) Sales Commercial farmers, vegetable growers, fruit growers, flower growers

Landscape designers and contractors

Home vegetable and flowers for gardens and pots

To NGOs to supply to farmers as inputs.

Fish farming and snail rearing.

Long relationship with our buyers since 1998

6- Food security

a) Chemical fertilizer alone cannot solve the problem of soil fertility. Organic material is essential to be added to all soils.

It is the combination of chemical and organic matter that is necessary to give good quality and yield to ensure food security.

b) Way forward Education is necessary to explain the need of organic matter in the soil for

soil fertility More commercial natural (organic) compost makers Compost makers to work with Agriculture Extension Officers to equal the

opportunity with the chemical fertilizer. Lobby the government and Minister of Agriculture for budget to compost

sewage sludge which will give a large quantity of organic matter for composting

Government gives farmers subsidised chemical fertilizers. If 20% of this was given to organic matter or compost makers, it would encourage and educate farmers to use both organic and chemical hand-in-hand to see the benefit in crops quality and yield.

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