• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.52-57
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• 2001

ln this study, the questionnaire survey was performed to obtain the basic data on current situations and challengeable aspects of vermicomposting industries. The questionnaire contained the four main categories such as vermicomposting facilities, feeling marerials, earthworm breeding and cast handling. The results was summarized as followings: 1. Vermicomposting facilities area was becoming larger, and earthworm feed was also expending to various organic sludges. These trends showed that Vermicomposting is being enlightened to treat and recycle the organic wastes in Korea. 2. Present Vermicomposting technology needs the broad land. Because of the high cost of land in Korea, the land saving technology such as multistage must be needed. And present operation practices are mostly based on human power, mechanization and automation is needed. Also, present control practices are based on individual experience need the scientific base control system. 3. Considering situations of organic wastes management in Korea, the technical development and the practical improvement of Vermicomposting as the waste recycling will be needed.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.92-96
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• 2003

The on-site sewage sludge vermicomposting equipment was designed and evaluated on the batch and continuous tests. The vermicomposting equipment was designed to consider the mechanization as well as automation. In terms of performance evaluation of equipment with continuous experiments, the highest treatment rate was found in the condition of 5mm in particle size and 10mm in e feeding height. Also, 20~25kg of earthworm per 50kg of sewage sludge was the most appropriate density of earthworm. In addition, the most effective separation of cast was found when the earthworm breeding box height was 80cm. The performance evaluation on equipment allowed the establishment of earthworm composting capacity of 2ton per a day with a size of $5{\times}3{\times}1m$ and the automatic control devices.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Sciences Society Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.109-110
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• 2004

국가적 과제인 음식물쓰레기 발생량을 저감시킬 수 있는 ‘지렁이를 이용한 음식물쓰레기 퇴비화’를 실천하고 있는 가정을 대상으로 설문조사를 함으로써 도시가정에서의 지렁이퇴비화 확산가능성을 확인할 수 있었다. 그러나 지렁이 사육방법에 대해 충분히 숙지하지 못함으로써 운영상에 어려움이 많았으며, 이에 대한 개선책으로서 일반인을 위한 지렁이퇴비화 지침서 제작.배포 및 상호간의 정보공유를 위한 장의 마련이 필요하였다.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.89-98
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• 2001

Present vermicomposting technology needs the broad land. Because of the high land cost, the land saving technology such as multistage must be needed. And present operation practices are mostly based on human power, mechanization and automation is needed. Also, present control practices based on individual experience need the scientific base control system. Even though the rough estimation of organic waste treatment showed that vermicompostiong could obtain more benefits than costs. But, the estimation is based on an ideal case without considering the technical and market. Generally, vermicomposting is considered as the more expensive technology than composting. Therefore, the practical proof the economic factor would be the most important to the market increase. Vermicomposting as the recycling technology has better condition than incineration and landfill. Propagation and advocating focused on its environmentally sound aspects would be needed continuously. Especially, demonstration and distribution of household vermicomposting would be a good approach. Vermicomposting facilities area was becoming larger, and earthworm feeding materials were also expanding to various organic sludges. These trends showed that vermicomposting is being enlightened to treat and recycle the organic wastes.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.79-87
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• 2013

Effects of pig manure with various composting periods(0, 15, 30, 50, 80 days) on feeding rate, biomass, cocoon production of earthworm(Eisenia fetida) population and physicochemical property of vermicast produced from pig manure were investigated. The feeding rate of earthworm was increased with longer composting period of pig manure. But the biomass production of earthworm population was highest upon the pig manure composted for 30 days. Upon the pig manure composted for 80 days, the biomass was severely reduced. Cocoon production was decreased with longer composting period and especially lower on the pig manure composted for 80 days. Values of pH, EC, C/N ratio of vermicasts produced from pig manure composts were lower than those of pig manures. And the organic material contents of vermicasts were uniformly reduced irrespective of composting duration of pig manure, whose values were 35.9-39.8%. From these results, the optimum composting period of pig manure for vermicomposting could be 15-30 days. And the application of vermicomposting upon the composted pig manure could be an efficient way for the treatment of pig feces, which can stabilize and recycle the organic wastes more rapidly than the conventional composting method.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.178-184
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• 2007

In the present work, the vermicomposting index was investigated using leakage water from sludge to develop the process of mechanization and automation in the earthworm-cast treatment. The in situ sewage sludge was used batch and continuous experiments. Due to different treatment processes, the physico-chemical characteristics of liquid extracted from sludge was the similar change pattern. However, some items, such as Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP), pH, Electrical Conductivity (EC) and $NH_3-N$, showed the distinct changes between pre- and post-vermicomposting. Also, The ORP and EC were the best parameters for the vermicomposting index. These results offered that the present vermicomposting technology was an actual earthworm-cast treatment.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.57-66
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• 2014

The present study was conducted to provide basic data for environmentally friendly treatment of manure using vermicomposting. This was done by investigating the influence of physiochemical property change during the composting period on the survival of earthworms after mixing cow manure in different levels (0(CRH0), 10(CRH10), 20(CRH20), 30(CRH30), and 40%(CRH40)) with the rice hull that is generally added for composting manure. As composting proceeds, earthworms were able to survive in all conditions after 3 weeks. In terms of the C/N ratio by treatment groups, the rice hull mix treatments were significantly higher than the CRH0 treatment. Among rice hull mix treatments, the treatments with 30~40% rice hull level (CRH30 & CRH40) showed the highest ratio out of all composting periods (p<0.05). The C/N ratio in the 3rdweek when earthworms started surviving was 23.26~34.44. As composting progressed, pH and electrolytic conductivity (EC) were the highest in the CRH0 treatment (p<0.05) and tended to decrease with higher proportion of rice hull in the mix. It was found that pH and electrolytic conductivity (EC) that earthworms start to survive are 7.58~7.74 and 0.41~1.17 mS/cm, respectively. To summarize, when composing cow manure with various levels of rice hull mix, all physiochemical property changes turned out to allow the survival of earthworms, but the results suggest that efficient vermicomposting requires the tests to examine the growth and reproduction according to the rice hull mix ratio.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.35-41
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• 2003

The on-site sewage sludge vermicomposting equipment was designed and evaluated on the batch and continuous tests. The vermicomposting equipment was designed to consider the mechanization as well as automation. Especially, the automatic controls of water content and temperature and the mechanization of the sludge feeding and cast separating were the important factors. In terms of changes in chemical characteristics when the equipments for experiments are operated continuously, the ORP, EC, $NH_3-N$ and $NO_3-N$ were found to be higher before and after treatment. In addition, it was found that changes in properties were low. Furthermore, the $NO_3-N$ concentration of the humus produced after treatment was found to be higher than the $NH_3-N$ concentration showing that it was appropriate based on the recycling criteria.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.51-62
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• 2005

The effects of the processing mixture of food wastes and various organic wastes when vermicomposted on earthworm(Eisenia foefida) growth, the cast production amounts and the chemical properties of casts were evaluated. The substrates used in this experiments were cow manure, pig manure sludge, fermented pig manure with sawdust, nightsoil sludge, and sewage sludge and were respectively mixed with food wastes at a ratios of 50:50(v/v). The control consisted of food wastes alone without other wastes. All of earthworm died in the food wastes 100%, therefore the process of food wastes alone by vermicomposting was impossible in this experiment. Worm cast produced sufficiently contained quantities of available phosphorus, exchangeable potassium, exchangeable magnesium, and cation exchange capacity. The increase of earthworm's biomass occured on the mixtures of food wastes and cow manure, fermented pig manure with sawdust. Dry weight of worm cast was the highest on the mixtures of food wastes and fermented pig manure with sawdust and the proportion of cast weight after vermicomposting was significantly the highest on the mixtures of food wastes and cow manure($p{\leq}0.05$). Also, the mixtures of food wastes and cow manure, and fermented pig manure with sawdust showed a positive values of conversion rate and conversion efficiency rate of organic matter to earthworm tissue than that of other treatments. These results suggested that cow manure and fermented pig manure with sawdust are adequate to process with food wastes by vermicomposting.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.91-100
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• 2004

This study was on a recyling system of food waste using poultry and earthworms. Food waste was fed to the egg-raising hens(Gallus gallus) or ducks(Anas platyrynchos). And the excrement of poultry after ingestion of food waste was mixed with other organic waste such as paper mill sludge or night soil sludge, aged and then provided to the earthworms(Eisenia andrei). An egg-raising hen and a duck ate up 0.40kg and 0.79kg of food waste per day, respectively. And the percental rate of exctretion(the amount of excrement/the amount of food waste eaten up) of an egg-raising hen and a duck was 71.0% and 53.7%, respectively. The excrement of poultry that had been mixed with paper mill sludge and aged was vermicomposted more easily than the excrement that had been mixed with night soil sludge and aged. The excrement of poultry aged for more than 21 days was more suitable to vermicompost than the excrement of poultry aged for less than 21 days. Even though, the earthworm lost its biomass on the mixed feeds regardless of their aging periods, which was supposed to be caused by high salinity in poulty's excrements.