Stabilisation of green waste
After 16 weeks of windrow composting, it can
be seen that the mean volatile solids content of the
waste had been reduced by approximately 30% with
most of the reduction (25%) taking place during
the first 8 weeks of composting (Fig. 4.) The most
rapid period of stabilisation occurred during the first
2 weeks of windrow composting and this can be
explained by the decomposition of readily-soluble
material, such as cel1 wal1 contents, and some
cellulose (Table 2). Kapetanios et al. (1993)
composting domestic waste reported that less than
50% of the cellulose content and virtually no lignin
was degraded after 7 weeks.