To achieve effective sanitisation of organic wastes, temperatures in excess of 60 0C are frequently specified for windrow composting processes. This emphasis on thermophilic pathogen control is likely to favour the long-term development of large-scale composting processes at the expense of vermicomposting, which is a mesophilic process. However, the very high temperatures associated with windrow composting are also known to inhibit decomposition (Bardos and Lopez-Real, 1991). Hence, it has been suggested that maintaining temperatures in the
mesophilic range could improve the efficiency of the composting process (Finstein et al., 1987).