The potential environmental risks of the utilization of composts from household food waste

Modern technologies (especially with the help of autonomous measurement and control systems) introduced automatic composters for the disposal of household food waste production. Environmental risks connected with the utilization of these composts can be characterized by the high electrical conductivity caused by a presence of sodium chloride in food. Electrical conductivity influences the ecotoxicity of the composts. The presence of pesticides in composted food also represents an important environmental problem. The following pesticides were found in compost samples from household food waste: 1,3,5-triazine, methyl trithion, bifenthrin, bifenox, carbophenothion, pirimicarb, dioxacarb, desmetryn. Pesticide content in composts varied from 0.3 to 16.3 μg/kg, the average value being 30.4 ± 10.1 μg/kg dry matter. The higher decomposition was found of "modern" pesticides in the composters. The removal of salts can ensure that inhibition will be < 30% while washing with the ratio of 1:3 will result in the inhibition < 5%. However, this way of processing is not effective for other organisms-Poecilia reticulata (mortality 100%) and Daphnia magna (immobilisation 100%) using this procedure as well as washing of the compost in the ratio 3:1.

Effects of the feeding ratio of food waste on fed-batch aerobic composting and its microbial community

To determine the suitable feeding ratio for fed-batch aerobic composting, four fermenters were operated by adding 0%, 5%, 10% or 15% of food waste every day. The results showed that the 5% and 10% treatments were able to maintain continuous thermophilic conditions, while the 15% treatment performed badly in regard to composting temperature, which was probably due to the negative effects of excessive moisture on microbial activity. As composting proceeded, both the 5% and the 10% treatments reached maturity and achieved weight losses of approximately 65%. High-throughput sequencing results indicated that Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Actinobacteria were the dominant phyla of the community structure. The communities sampled at the thermophilic phases had high similarity and relatively low diversity, while species diversity increased in the maturity phase. This study was devoted to optimizing the fed-batch composting process and assessing bacterial communities, both of which were supplied as a reference for practical application.

Cultural, Transcriptomic, and Proteomic Analyses of Water-Stressed Cells of Actinobacterial Strains Isolated from Compost: Ecological Implications in the Fed-Batch Composting Process

This study was undertaken to examine the effects of water activity (aw) on the viability of actinobacterial isolates from a fed-batch composting (FBC) process by comparing culturability and stainability with 5-cyano-2,3-ditoryl tetrazolium chloride (CTC). The FBC reactor as the source of these bacteria was operated with the daily loading of household biowaste for 70 d. During this period of composting, aw in the reactor decreased linearly with time and reached approximately 0.95 at the end of operation. The plate counts of aerobic chemoorganotrophic bacteria were 3.2-fold higher than CTC-positive (CTC+) counts on average at the fully acclimated stage (after 7 weeks of operation), in which Actinobacteria predominated, as shown by lipoquinone profiling and cultivation methods. When the actinobacterial isolates from the FBC process were grown under aw stress, no significant differences were observed in culturability among the cultures, whereas CTC stainability decreased with reductions in aw levels. A cDNA microarray-based transcriptomic analysis of a representative isolate showed that many of the genes involved in cellular metabolism and genetic information processing were down-regulated by aw stress. This result was fully supported by a proteomic analysis. The results of the present study suggest that, in low aw mature compost, the metabolic activity of the community with Actinobacteria predominating is temporarily reduced to a level that hardly reacts with CTC; however, these bacteria are easily recoverable by exposure to a high aw culture medium. This may be a plausible reason why acclimated FBC reactors in which Actinobacteria predominate yields higher plate counts than CTC+ counts.

Changes in bacterial communities accompanied by aggregation in a fed-batch composting reactor

The contents of fed-batch composting (FBC) reactors often aggregate after prolonged operation. This process leads to irreversible breakdown of the decomposition reaction and possible alteration of the bacterial communities. We compared the structures of bacterial communities in reactors under aggregate and optimal conditions. The results of 16S rRNA gene clone analysis showed that populations of the family Bacillaceae (such as Bacillus spp., Cerasibacillus spp., Gracilibacillus spp.), which dominate (98%) under optimal condition, were significantly decreased under aggregate condition. In contrast, populations of the family Staphylococcaceae considerably increased after aggregation and accounted for 53% of the total. Phylogenetic analysis also showed that anaerobes or facultative anaerobes related to Tetragenococcus halophilus, Atopostipes suicloacalis, Jeotgalicoccus pinnipedialis, and Staphylococcus spp. were dominant in the aggregates. These results suggested that aerobic Gram-positive bacteria mainly contributed to organic degradation and that aggregation created some anaerobic environment, which promoted the growth of bacterial communities usually not found in well-functioning FBC reactors.