**1. Introduction**

86 Management of Organic Waste

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Earthworms are terrestrial invertebrates belonging to the Order Oligochaeta, Class Chaetopoda, Phylum Annelida, which have originated about 600 million years ago, during the pre-Cambrian era (Piearce *et al.,* 1990). Earthworms occur in diverse habitat, exhibiting effective activity, by bringing about physical and chemical changes in the soil leading to improvement in soil fertility. An approach towards good soil management, with an emphasis on the role of soil dwellers like earthworms, in soil fertility, is very important in maintaining balance in an ecosystem (Shuster *et al.,* 2000).

The role of earthworms in soil formation and soil fertility is well documented and recognised (Darwin, 1881; Edwards *et al.,* 1995; Kale, 1998; Lalitha *et al.,* 2000). The main activity of earthworms involves the ingestion of soil, mixing of different soil components and production of surface and sub surface castings thereby converting organic matter into soil humus (Jairajpuri, 1993). Earthworms play an important role in the decomposition of organic matter and soil metabolism through feeding, fragmentation, aeration, turnover and dispersion (Shuster *et al.,* 2000).

Earthworms were referred by Aristotle as "the intestines of earth and the restoring agents of soil fertility" (Shipley, 1970). They are biological indicators of soil quality (Ismail, 2005), as a good population of earthworms indicates the presence of a large population of bacteria, viruses, fungi, insects, spiders and other organisms and thus a healthy soil (Lachnicht and Hendrix, 2001).

The role of earthworms in the recycling of nutrients, soil structure, soil productivity and agriculture, and their application in environment and organic waste management is well understood (Edwards *et al.,* 1995; Tomlin *et al.,* 1995; Shuster *et al.,* 2000; Ansari and Ismail, 2001a, b; Ismail, 2005; Ansari and Ismail, 2008; Ansari and Sukhraj, 2010).
