The U.S. poultry industry make a huge amount of feather waste annually , more than one million metric tons , account Xingen Lei and fellow worker at Cornell University ’s Department of Animal Science in May 2010 . Scientists assay ways to avoid having the feathers terminate up in dumps or landfills , as this devastate the protein - rich ceratin social organisation of the feather and causes nitrogen to pollute the environment . One potential route to reclaiming this constitutional refuse involves worm compost .

Significance

Feathers carry keratin , a fibrous protein also found in human and favourite hair . While slow to break up either in regular or worm compost , plume and whisker are constituent and make lists of satisfactory materials for louse composting compose by sustainable agribusiness organizations .

Types

Rajiv K. Sinha and colleagues at the School of Environmental Engineering at Griffith University in Queensland , Australia , mention that earthworms feed on constitutive waste rich in nitrogen . Worms are used to compost slaughterhouse waste , include feathers , bones and stock , as well as organic wastefulness from kitchen , gardens , farm , sugar Robert Mills , municipal garbage aggregation .

Time Frame

Chicken feathers degrade during unconstipated composting , but their high ceratin substance slows the process . They contain about 14 percent nitrogen , much of which may be continue by finished compost , according to Steve Kroening , School of Biological Sciences , University of Canterbury .

Size

Hobbyist gardeners report successful dirt ball composting of feather waste in small quantities using bedding material - dwell compost worm . The Bhawalkar Earthworm Research Institute ( BERI ) in India is developing ways for large - scale processing of organic waste using larger burrowing earthworms such as nightcrawlers . BERI , run by chemical technologist Uday Bhawalkar , notes the worms can break down feathers and bones .

Misconceptions

feather associated with slaughterhouses may be contaminated with salmonella and E. coli bacterium . Even though louse compost avoids the high heat associated with regular composting as bacterial action raises the temperature in the eye of the pile and kills off pathogen , the worms themselves appear to be able to reduce pathogen level as they digest and process organic material . Indian zoologist Arvind Kumar found that worm could polish off E. coli and salmonella from spoiled food and reduced pathogen to a great extent in fact than regular composting . Reductions of 99.9 per centum or swell are possible , he writes in " Verms and Vermitechnology . "

Expert Insight

Studies of vermicomposting and pathogen also essay the louse ’s ability to get rid of pathogen from biosolids present in sewerage , such as a subject by Bruce R. Eastman of the Orange County Environmental Protection Division in Florida reported in BioCycle powder store . Eastman ’s and Kumar ’s research intimate that vermicomposting with feather waste may also ensue in low tested resultant role of pathogens in the ruined vermicompost . In fact , inoculate feather wasteland with utilitarian feather corrupting bacteria such as Bacillus licheniformis may race the breakdown of feather waste product generated by process plant , notes phytology professor Jann Ichida and colleages at Ohio Wesleyan University , a find with implications for riotous vermicomposting .

References

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