The majority of municipal (urban) solid waste (MSW) is disposed of in landfills (anaerobic composting). However, this disposal system is reported to produce hazardous environmental impacts, and new policies are initiated to protect the environment from such impacts by discouraging the practice of disposal of solid waste in landfills. Eco-friendly disposal alternatives to landfills need to be explored. One of the technological options for treatment and disposal of organic solid wastes is vermicomposting. Instead of using conventional composting methods, the vermicomposting method can be used for the disposal of the waste. The enzymatic and microbial activities that occur during vermicomposting process by worms gives a better end product than using the conventional composting. Food waste will be recovered for vermicomposting, and the end products can be organic fertilizer, soil improver, and an alternative source of potential energy. Vermicomposting or vermiculture is an eco-friendly process whereby worms are used to breakdown the organic waste into soil and humus known as vermicast, vermicompost, or earthworm compost. The objective is to process the organic material as quickly and efficiently as possible. During the breakdown of organic matter by the earthworm, humus, which is a complicated material, is formed. The material formed is high in content of nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus, which are the main elements required by plants for their growth, health, and freshness.
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A fast expanding populace and high rate of industrialization has expanded the issue of solid waste management. The issue has additionally expanded in urban areas on account of lack of dumping destinations and severe natural enactment, so researchers are looking for the executive choices, which ought to be ecofriendly, shoddy and quick. Urban solid waste (MSW) is very carbon-based in nature, so vermicomposting has turned into a suitable option for the innocuous, sterile and cost viable transfer of it. Worms feed on the organics what's more, convert material into casting (expelled material) rich in plant supplements. The compound examinations of these expelled materials show two times accessible magnesium, multiple times available nitrogen and multiple times available potassium contrasted with the encircling soil (Bridgens, 1981).
Urban/municipal solid waste (MSW) is usually regarded as the waste that is generated from human settlements, small industries, commercial and municipal activities (Table 1). There are few more sources from which MSW originates i.e. waste water treatment plants (sewage sludge), household (glass, paper, metals, etc.), public areas (waste from parks, streets, etc.) (Table 1). The management of solid waste has turned out to be one of the most concerning issues we are confronting today. The quick increment in the volume of waste is one viewpoint of the natural emergency, going with later worldwide advancement. Solid waste is considered as the natural and inorganic waste materials created by various sources and have lost an incentive in the eye of their proprietor. It has been evaluated that India creates as much as 25 million tonns of urban solid waste of various formations every year. World urban communities create roughly 1.3 billion metric huge amounts of solid waste every year, which is practically twofold the sums that were produced 10 years back (Hoornweg and Bhada-Tata, 2012). By 2025, strong waste ages will twofold once more (Hoornweg et al., 2013). The yearly increment in solid waste age is inseparably connection to the fast ascent in worldwide populace and rate of urbanization. As a nation urbanizes, its way of life and income level builds which prompts higher utilization of merchandise and enterprises, along these lines creating bigger measure of solid waste per capita (Hoornweg and Bhada-Tata, 2012). Amongst the total solid waste created all inclusive, organic waste is the biggest extent with 46% (Hoornweg and Bhada-Tata, 2012). The organic waste incorporates sustenance scraps, yard waste and agrarian waste. The remainder of the waste is inorganic like paper, plastic, glass, metal and others (Karak et al., 2012). Be that as it may, per capita waste generation in India is minisculous contrasted with the per capita generation of squanders in the industrialized nations. It is assessed that the per capita waste produced in India is about 0.4 kg/day with the compostable issue around 50-60%. In developed nations, the landfills are outfitted with a blend of waste regulation frameworks, for example, spill discovery and the board frameworks for gathering leachates and biogas (Hoornweg and Bhada-Tata, 2012). The impediment of land and the valuation of waste as assets are solid motivations to move away from landfilling and move towards increasingly maintainable waste administration methodology (Marshall and Farahbaksh, 2013). Most basic practices of waste formulating are uncontrolled dumping which causes fundamentally water and soil adulteration. Current techniques for solid waste administrations are landfilling, burning, reusing, reuse, source decrease and others (Wu et al., 2014). Other than dumping or clean land filling, the last transmission of solid waste can be completed by different techniques like burning or incineration and treating the soil by composting. Both landfilling and burning are portrayed as waste transfers, which are the least favoured choices in the waste the board chain of command. In numerous pieces of the world, landfilling remains the predominant technique for waste transfer as it is the least expensive as far as capital expenses (Laner et al., 2012). Farming of Earthworm (vermiculture) is another bio-procedure for changing over the solid organic waste into manure or compost (Ghosh, 2004). Decreased landfilling for expanded reusing of materials (glass, paper, cardboard, plastic, metals and organic chunk) appears to prompt lower ecological effect and lower vitality request or the energy demand (Eriksson et al., 2005).