BENEFITS OF VERMICOMPOSTING PROCESS

There are numerous benefits of vermi-composting process which are it is inexpensive, odorless,
free from toxic waste and its end up being a valuable product. This kind of composting also beneficial to
agricultural soil because of its characteristics that have well nutrient holding capacity, greater levels of
microbial activity and increased moisture retention ability (Tables 1 and 2). Based on Suthar (2009),
outcomes in a better quality product of vermicomposting is about the it has higher nutrient availability
than traditional composting system. Vermicomposting has potency to be an effective technology as it
provided better P nutrition from different organic wastes (Ghosh et al., 1999). Next, vermicomposting
also result in amplification of supply rate of numeral nutrients compared to the traditional one. This is
statement is proven by Atiyeh et al. (2000) and Hammermeister et al. (2004) as they reported
vermicomposted contain higher existence of N and nitrates which more plant-available form of nitrogen
compared to typically composted manure. In 2002, Norbu stated that during the vermicomposting
process, it is proved that volatile solid reduction occurred better than the aerobic composting which it has
higher significant different than the former cases (Table 1).

Table 1: Comparison between composting and vermicomposting process

Table 2: Comparative study between vermicompost and compost produced from MSW
Source: Norbu (2002)
 Based on Eastman (1999), the the process of vermicomposting can also give an effect to the
pathogen level in a product, researchers claim that by vermicomposted the number of pathogen in the
product is much lower and not only that it is also emit small amount of green house and very accessible to
suit any volume and this is the reason why this composting process also known as an environmentally
sustainable process. Then, vermicomposting also helps in lowering the C/N ratio of fresh organic matter
this is due to the helps of the earthworm and occurred during their respiration process (Edwards, 1998;
Talashilkar et al.1999). The C:N ratio of the substrate is decreasing by the loss of carbon as CO 2 during
microbial respiration followed with the helps from the addition of nitrogen rich excretory material.
According to Kale (2002), C:N ratio is one of the most widely used indicators in order to measure the
maturation of the vermicompost.

Next, vermicomposting also increase soil fertility because of the mineral N retained in soil in
nitrate form (Hand et al., 1988). Researchers claimed that when there is the presence of earthworms and
this mineral N, the mineralization of N would be greater this is because the earthworms eat large amount
of organic matter containing substantial amounts of N and returned it in a form of their excretions to the
soil. In addition, the N, P and K matters in vermicomposts may be because of microbial enzyme activities
while passing through the gut of earthworms ( Parthasarathi & Ranganathan,2000).

The other benefits of vermicomposting is it can used in removal of toxic metals and also in
breakdown of complex chemicals to non-toxic forms (Jain et al., 2004; Jain and Singh, 2004). This
occurrence happen when the large amount of substrates ingests by earthworm and therefore the heavy
metals exposed to through their skin and intestine which allowed them to concentrate heavy metals in
their body from the substrates (Morgan, 1999; Leonard et al., 2001). For an evidence, reported by Saxena
et al. (1998), during the vermicomposting of sewage sludge, earthworms’ species Eisenia foetida
accumulate higher concentration of heavy metals while Spurgeon and Hopkin (1995) reported drastic
reduction of copper in contaminated soil by the reproduction of earthworm. So, heavy metals absorption
in the vermicompost is reversely proportional to composting time which is when the composting time
increasing the heavy metals absorption is decreased (Shahmansouri et al., 2005). To be concluded,
vermicompost can be used efficiently as a natural absorbent for heavy metal accumulation (Landgraf et
al., 1998; Matos and Arruda, 2003).

Lastly, according to Pooja Nidoni(2015), vermicomposting can recovers the pH of the soil.
This is because the characteristics of the earthworm that can change acidic or alkaline soil to neutral soil.
This can be applied to the waste land which can also be converted to fertile land.
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