Carbon credit from composting of municipal solid waste

The estimation of carbon credit from composting of MSW has been presented in this paper. The Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) used in formation of windrow was collected from the NERIST campus. Loss on Ignition (LOI) was measured which represents the amount of carbon and remaining ash in solid waste samples after ignition. As an absolute measure of biodegradable carbon, LOI provides an excellent measure of biological decomposition in a composting process. Only, biodegradable components of waste are converted into CO2 during the composting process and thus, a relationship between LOI of the waste after composting and LOI of the raw waste exists. In the present study, CO2 generated due to aerobic decomposition of MSW was estimated by conducting experiments and employing the relationship between LOI of raw as well as composted waste.