• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.95-111
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• 2004

This research sought to determine the status of the installation and operation of composting facilities of domestic public resource-making facilities and come up with corresponding improvement measures. The composting facilities were the most extensively installed of related facilities with over a 0.5 ton treated volume per day. The monthly and yearly carry-in volume of food waste were found to stand at 1,101.7 tons per day and 930.9 tons per day, thus falling short of the average planned volume of 1,270.9 tons. Many composting facilities, which were installed in areas for which factory registration were not approved, did not get approvals. Composting facilities underwent operation stoppage mainly due to faulty fermentation and crushing equipment. Mainly metals contained in food waste caused faults to the crushing equipment, thus requiring a facility designing against faults and corrosion. The initial water content was found to stand at 50-60%, thus complying with the requirement. However, since the composting food waste had an appropriate mixture of sawdust, food waste, and returned compost, it should meet the initial conditions. For fermentation facilities, the duration time for fermentation was 15 days, and post-fermentation tanks required 21 days of duration time, thus establishing the minimum criteria. However, some facilities did not meet the requirements, taking more time in decomposition, thus suggesting a need to determine the duration time according to facilities. In composting food waste, microorganism-based thermal oxidizer-operated fermentation tanks should be used to ensure an economic operation. On the contrary, 14 out of 25 survey targets heated fermentation tanks in any form. These thermal facilities contain the growth of bacteria, lowering chemical reaction in composting; thus composting facilities should be basically designed to use microorganism-based thermal oxidizers in drying water. An average daily volume of food waste and supplementary materials that was injected in producing compost was 22.8 tons. This volume produced 7.3 tons of compost per day, decreasing 68%. Properties of produced compost were analyzed by its color, absence or presence of remaining decomposition heat, and smell, to assess the quality. As a result, the composting process was not properly installed nor operated in about 50% of composting facilities. Compost should be produced to be soil-friendly.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.79-87
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• 2008

Many researchers have studied on rooftop greening that can be installed in abandoned spaces on a building roof. The most important issue in rooftop greening is the soil weight problem. The light greening materials are needed to solve this problem. Therefore, many alternative materials against the soil were investigated for rooftop greening. In this study, the waste wood chips and the waste paper slurry were evaluated as the lightweight vegetation foundation for rooftop greening. It also has a meaning for recycling of waste materials. The mixture ratio of waste wood chips to waste paper slurry for the board (the foundation of greening) was 60 to 40. The wet strength resin and the sizing agent were additionally added with different amount. After the forming of the board, physical and chemical properties were tested with the variation of wet strength resin and sizing agent. As the result of the test, the board with 15% of wet strength resin in the wet condition showed the highest strength. Futhermore, the moisture evaporation loss from the board surface with sizing agent was much lower than that from the board without sizing agent. Therefore, it was clear that the sizing agent was effective for water retention. The change of thickness in the wet condition was less than 1 mm, and it showed that the board is the predominant material on the dimensional stability. The average pH value of the board was ranged from 7.6 to 8.25.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.321-327
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• 2006

In Korea, there is a growing competitive for water resources between industrial, domestic and agricultural consumer, and the environment as many other OECD countries. The demand on water use is also affecting aquatic ecosystems particularly where withdrawals are in excess of minimum environmental needs for rivers, lakes and wetland habits. OECD developed three indicators related to water use by the agriculture in above contexts : the first is a water use intensity indicator, which is expressed as the quantity or share of agricultural water use in total national water utilization; the second is a water stress indicator, which is expressed as the proportion of rivers (in length) subject to diversion or regulation for irrigation without reserving a minimum of limiting reference flow; and the third is a water use efficiency indicator designated as the technical and the economic efficiency. These indicators have different meanings in the aspect of water resource conservation and sustainable water use. So, it will be more significant that the indicators should reflect the intrinsic meanings of them. The problem is that the aspect of an overall water flow in the agro-ecosystem and recycling of water use not considered in the assessment of agricultural water use needed for calculation of these water use indicators. Namely, regional or meteorological characteristics and site-specific farming practices were not considered in the calculation of these indicators. In this paper, we tried to calculate water use indicators suggested in OECD and to modify some other indicators considering our situation because water use pattern and water cycling in Korea where paddy rice farming is dominant in the monsoon region are quite different from those of semi-arid regions. In the calculation of water use intensity, we excluded the amount of water restored through the ground from the total agricultural water use because a large amount of water supplied to the farm was discharged into the stream or the ground water. The resultant water use intensity was 22.9% in 2001. As for water stress indicator, Korea has not defined nor monitored reference levels of minimum flow rate for rivers subject to diversion of water for irrigation. So, we calculated the water stress indicator in a different way from OECD method. The water stress indicator was calculated using data on the degree of water storage in agricultural water reservoirs because 87% of water for irrigation was taken from the agricultural water reservoirs. Water use technical efficiency was calculated as the reverse of the ratio of irrigation water to a standard water requirement of the paddy rice. The efficiency in 2001 was better than in 1990 and 1998. As for the economic efficiency for water use, we think that there are a lot of things to be taken into considerations to make a useful indicator to reflect socio-economic values of agricultural products resulted from the water use. Conclusively, site-specific, regional or meteorogical characteristics as in Korea were not considered in the calculation of water use indicators by methods suggested in OECD(Volume 3, 2001). So, it is needed to develop a new indicators for the indicators to be more widely applicable in the world.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.15-22
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• 2017

Application of organic resources to agricultural land can increase crop yield by improving soil characteristics. The objective of this study was to evaluate effect of crop yield and soil physical properties including aggregate stability to application of organic resources in upland. The soybean was cultivated in a sandy loam field and a clay loam field located at Suwon and a sandy loam field located at Pyeongchang. The organic resources used in this study were rice straw compost (RSC), composted pig manure with sawdust (CPIG), composted poultry manure with sawdust (CPM), and cocopeat applied before sowing crop. Application rate of organic resources was determined based on carbon content and water content. The inorganic fertilizers were applied based on soil testing. In addition, the decomposition of RSC, CPIG, and cocopeat was characterized by isothermal incubation with sandy loam soil. The decomposition rate was highest for RSC followed by CPIG and cocopeat. Organic resource application increased yield of soybean, which effect was greater in clay loam than in sandy loam. In addition, increase in gas phase proportion by organic resource application was distinct in clay loam soil compared with sandy loam soil. In terms of aggregate stability, increasing effect was more obvious in sandy loam soils than in a clay loam soil. The highest yield was observed in RSC treatment plots for all the fields. Improvement of soybean yield and soil physical characteristics by cocopeat was not as much as that of the other organic resources. The results implied that RSC could be recommended for promoting aggregate stability and crop yield in upland cultivation.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.31-37
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• 2010

Livestock manures have a potential to be a valuable resource with an efficient treatment. In Korea, 42 million tons of livestock manure were generated in 2008, and 84 % of them were used for compost and liquid fertilizer production. Recently recycling of livestock manure for biogas production through anaerobic digestion is increasing, but its utilization in agriculture is still uncertified. In this study, there was applied co-digestate to the paddy for rice cultivation based on N supplement. Co-digestate was fertilizer fermented with pig slurry and food waste combined with the ratio of 70:30(v:v) in its volumetric basis. For assessing the safety of co-digestate, it was monitored the contents of co-digestate for seasonal variation, resulted in no potential harm to the soil and plant by heavy metals. The results showed that soil applied with co-digestate was increased in exchangeable potassium, copper and zinc mainly due to the high rate of pig slurry in co-digestate applied. Considering high salt content due to the combination with food waste, strict quality assurances are needed for safe application to arable land though it has valuable fertilizer nutrient. Leachate after treatment showed that the concentration of nitrate nitrogen washed out within two weeks. Considering the salt accumulation results in soil, it is highly recommended that the application rate of co-digestate should not exceed the crop fertilization rate based on N supplement. With these results, it was concluded that co-digestate could be used as an alternative fertilizer for chemical fertilizer. More study is needed for the long-term effects of co-digestate application on the soil and water environment.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.93-101
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• 2014

In this study, a blast furnace slag having latent hydraulic property with an alkaline activator for resource recycling was used to solidify sand without using cement. Existing chemical alkaline activators such as $Ca(OH)_2$ and NaOH were used for cementing soils. An alkaliphilic microorganism, which is active at higher than pH 10, is tested for a new alkaline activator. The alkaliphilic microorganism was added into sand with a blast furnace slag and a chemical alkaline activator. This is called the microorganism alkaline activator. Four different ratios of blast furnace slag (4, 8, 12, 16%) and two different chemical alkaline activators ($Ca(OH)_2$ and NaOH) were used for preparing cemented specimens with or without the alkaliphilic microorganism. The specimens were air-cured for 7 days and then tested for the experiment of unconfined compressive strength (UCS). Experimental results showed that as a blast furnace slag increased, the water content and dry density increased. The UCS of a specimen increased from 178 kPa to 2,435 kPa. The UCS of a specimen mixed with $Ca(OH)_2$ was 5-54% greater than that with NaOH. When the microorganism was added into the specimen, the UCS of a specimen with $Ca(OH)_2$ decreased by 11-60% but one with NaOH increased by 19-121%. The C-S-H hydrates were found in the cemented specimens, and their amounts increased as the amount of blast furnace slag increased through SEM analysis.