ABSTRACT
Composts are widely used as organic amendments to add organic matter and nutrients to soils. Pineapple peels were obtained from a retail fruit shop at Ekosodin, ovia North East Local Government Area of Benin City, Edo State. The peels were composted using a closed compost system for three weeks. At the end of the three weeks, the leachate from the compost was analyzed for some characteristics such as; pH, temperature, bacteria count, Chloride, Nitrogen, and carbon. Also 20ml of the sample was digested using Nitric-perchloric method, after digestion, the sample was diluted to 102ml in a volumetric flask. This was also characterized for the following parameters: magnesium, calcium, sulfur, phosphorus, copper, iron, manganese, potassium, zinc and sodium using Atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), UV-visible spectroscopy and Titrimetry analysis. Result revealed pH value of 3.5 which indicated that the wastewater sample was acidic. Carbon and Chloride contents were very high. Excess carbon can make the decomposition process to be slow and Chloride can cause dissolution of trace metals. Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium had moderate nutrient content values. For Sodium, sulfur, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Iron, Zinc, Copper, Manganese, they had very low values which indicates that these Nutrient were very little in the sample. Temperature was moderate, and if it's in thermal condition, it can destroy the bacteria present in the compost and render the compost inactive. Bacteria count was used to obtain the microbial population for the absolute concentration of viable organisms present in the leacha.
