Abstract:
With an expanding growth in the world’s population, there is an urgency to
continually find alternative strategies to foster resourceful and sustainable
waste treatment options. The availability and variety of potential feedstocks
for biogas generation require reliable knowledge of the waste characteristics
and evaluation of specific feedstock types. Even so, not all waste products are
suitable for biotransformation. Also, an extensive range of market organic
waste is underutilized, resulting in resource waste and other detrimental
environmental issues. Consequently, there is an increasing focus on better
feedstock utilization and reliability for improved biogas. This research seeks
to assess market waste as a potential feedstock for biogas digesters. Using the
purposive sampling technique, suitable organic wastes (eleven samples from
each market) were weighed from three selected markets (based on proximity
and the abundance of food and vegetable vendors) in Cape Coast to determine
their abundance and reliability. The findings revealed the average total waste
generation per week for each market to be 436.29 kg (Abura), 362.46 kg
(Kotokuraba), and 140.64 kg (UCC Science) indicating the abundance of
waste for bioconversion in Cape Coast. The waste characteristics showed
considerable moisture content ranging from 57.44 % to 91.27 %. The TS with
VS concentrations in the waste ranged from 8.73 % - 42.56 % and 0.17 % -
35.06 % respectively. The pH ranged from 3.19 - 6.13 Even though the waste
had significant NPK Variation, it was ascertained that the organic fraction of
municipal solid waste is typically poor in nutrients. The Cu and Zn determined
in the study were 0.98 μg/g to 57.13 μg/g and 25.56 μg/g to 245.07 μg/g
respectively. The waste had higher levels of BOD₅ (155.73 mg O₂/L to 731.89
mg O₂/L) and COD (2680 mg O₂/L to 28128) indicating high levels of
pollutants in waste. It also had high pathogen contamination in waste samples
highlighting a potential environmental and public health risk.
