Abstract
The composting practice has been recognized as the most popular way of controlling food waste and many attempt have been made in the field to establish more efficient and economical process. Some of the efforts are mixing cured compost with sawdust as alternative bulking agent, seeding commercially produced microorganism and/or combination of above. However, verification of such efforts is often restricted because of either the lack of engineering consideration on the limitation of composting facility scales. In this study, the effect of mixing materials in food waste composting was investigated by controlling the combination and the mixing ratio of them. When the cured compost was mixed with saw dust. the decomposition of organic material was proven to be more active by observing the compost temperature, the oxygen (O$_2$) consumption, and the cumulative carbon dioxide ($CO_2$) profile. However, the quantity of compost mix-ing seemed not to influence the reaction as long as the minimum required amount was mixed. The feeding of com-mercially produced microorganism had a tendency to prolong the thermophilic stage, which helped to increase the decomposition but it resulted in composting period. Regardless of the composting condition, bacteria and actinomycetes increased in population as the reaction approached to the end. The population of bacteria and actinomycetes were rel-atively higher than those of fungi and yeast throughout the reaction.
