Vermiculture in Egypt: - FAO - Regional Office for the Near East and

Agriculture;
31.72;
16%
Industrial Processes;
;
27.77; 14%
Fuel Combustion
Waste;
17.49;
9%
Fugitive fuel;
10.81; 6%
Fugitive fuel emissions
Figure 7.2. Egypt‟s greenhouse gases emissions by sector for the year 2000, in mega
ton CO2 equivalent.
Source: EEAA(2010).
Table (7.3) and figure (7.2) show the change of sectors‟ contribution to Egypt‟s total
inventory. It is clear that the total greenhouse gas emissions of Egypt increased in
2000 to be 165% of that in 1990. During this period Egypt‟s population increased by
123% with an increase in the GDP of 277% (Ministry of Economic Development,
2007). The ratio of GDP, at the 1981/82 fixed prices, for the year 2000 to that for
1990 is 151%, denoting that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions seems to be
correlated to the GDP increase rather than the population growth. It is clear that
emissions from agriculture are the second after fuel combustion and before industrial
processes.
7.4. Vermifilters in domestic wastewater treatment
There is another important use that helps the environment which is the use of
vermiculture as a biological filter for domestic waste water. use of earthworms in
filtration systems, which has been termed vermifiltration (VF) (Xing et al., 2010).
Since then, several studies have been conducted to evaluate the use of vermifilters in
domestic wastewater treatment, municipal wastewater treatment, and swine
wastewater treatment processes, as well as in simultaneous sludge reduction
processes. However, less attention has been given to the use of vermifilters to dispose
of excess sludge directly. Moreover, most studies conducted to evaluate VFs have
only focused on the contamination purification efficiencies, but the interactions
between earthworms and microorganisms, which are very important for understanding
the sludge stabilization mechanisms involved in VFs, have not been fully investigated.
A study was conducted to explore the feasibility of using a VF to stabilize sewage
sludge while focusing on elucidating the earthworm–microorganism interactions
responsible for the decomposition of organic matter in the vermifilter. Additionally,
this investigation sought to identify the primary mechanism by which sewage sludge
stabilization in the vermifilter occurs based on the chemical and spectroscopic
69
Industrial Processes
Fuel Combustion;
105.51;
55%
Agriculture
Waste