Abstract: Compostingalways proved to be the Nature-friendly and sustainable method for getting ridof the huge burden of biowaste. As we witness, there is an intractable growthof human population and their unlimited consumption of different goods producea tremendous amount of waste. In New Delhi itself, more than 9500 tons of wasteis generated every day, out of which 8000 tons per day goes to the landfilling,which is the most commonly practicedmethod. This malignant process instead of solving the problem of waste, inturn, causes more problems like methane emission, heavy metal leaching into groundwater, soil pollution, etc. Compostingmimics natural mineralization process which is the alternative solution ofresource recovery with no side-effects. To curb such a huge amount of waste,the composting process must be rapidified and achieved by in-vessel composting,where the partial anaerobic condition is reduced by enforced aeration andcritical parameters like moisture and temperature can be controlled. Aerobicbacteria are the main agents which speed up the composting process. Moreover,easily available natural additives like buttermilk, jaggery, sugar, etc. alsospeed up the microbial process and increase the efficiency. So, the in-vesselcomposting provides efficient compost in a very short time period. This paperwill provide a critical assessment of In-vessel composting in terms of processparameters and efficiency in comparison with conventional methods. This processcan be critically utilized for community-based composting at small scalecompost production, which will be a key to link daily household waste withresource generation with the aim to achieve Swach Bharat Mission.
Keywords: Composting,biowaste, landfilling, methane, heavy metals, in-vessel composting, additives.