The paper investigates the use of mixed fruit and vegetable (FV) waste to extract liquid to grow bacteria. The bacteria will be used to induce biocementation of soils and two metabolic pathways are examined. These are the ureolytic pathway and the carbonic anhydrase pathway (which absorbs CO2). The growing medium produced from fruit and vegetable waste is compared with a commercial growing medium. The results show the feasibility of using FV as a growth medium to successfully biocement soil and coal ash. A typical FV medium contains 3% total sugar and 0.302 mg/100 ml of protein. The results show that vegetable stalks and fruit peel media support the growth of both ureolytic bacteria B. licheniformis and U-1, a carbonic anhydrase-producing bacteria. The use of FV waste to grow bacteria leads to a reduction in biocementation costs for ground improvement applications
