Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch as a Potential Feedstock for Composting

Abstract

Oil palm plantation has been widely planted in tropical countries, particularly Malaysia. Oil palm biomasses as by-products of palm oil production, therefore, exist abundantly. Four kilograms of dry biomasses are generated for every kilogram of palm oil produced. Empty fruit bunch is a major solid waste produced by palm oil mills, constituting 23% of the total weight of the fresh palm fruit bunch. As one of the largest palm oil producers, Malaysia generated a huge amount of EFB annually, making the country's disposal process a headache issue. Therefore, utilizing these wastes strategically could be beneficial from both economic and environmental points of view. Ideally, EFB could be used as feedstocks for bioenergy production, composites fabrication, activated carbon, and chemical synthesis. Apart from that, composting is also one of the potential approaches to solving this waste's abundance. Composting oil palm EFB means converting the EFB waste, which is essentially organic in nature, into humus suitable for crop production. The main purpose of composting is to handle organic wastes and enhance soil fertility safely. This paper gives an overview of the latest status and technologies dealing with composting of oil palm EFB, its limitations, current issues, and way forward.