| Abstract | The Nonthaburi Municipality, with a population of 270,077 and an area of 38.9 krn2.(most of which are commercial area), generates 329 tons of solid waste per day; of which 54 tons of inorganic and 5 tons of organic waste get recycled. The remaining 270 tons are taken care of by the conventional disposal system. The municipality has set a goal to reduce waste by 20%. Recycling is seen as a key for achieving this goal. The recycling activities have however remained focused on inorganic waste. The municipality has thus a policy to reduce the amount of waste by reuse of organic waste as compost. But the organic waste compost use in the urban area is limited. Thus, this policy has not been successful. In the above background, this study seeks to use the inter-related concepts of market development and marketing strategy for promoting organic waste composting and their utilization to achieve the municipal goal of waste reduction and recycling. In order to generate the necessary data and analyze them systematically, the study adopted a supply-demand framework for studying the compost market in the Nonthaburi Municipality and its vicinity. Data were collected through semi-structured questionnaires, interviews of key personnel and visual imaging. The questionnaire surveys were conducted in two areas namely the Klong-Bang-sea-noy (for the survey on urban household) and the Klong-Pha-Udom sub-district (for the survey of farmer household) to represent respectively the supply and demand sides of the organic waste market. The organic waste accounts for 67 % of the total solid waste in the municipality. Its efforts in recycling of organic waste started with the implementation of a home composting program but it did not succeed. Two sets of findings of this study have fundamentally guided this study's exploration as to what needs to be done by the municipality for realization of its goal to promote composting. On the supply side, the findings include: 74% of residents who do not separate organic waste, it is because: separation is not considered important (30%), difficult to separate (28%), no time to separate (15%), bad odor (14%), and limited space to do so (14%). On the demand side, the findings include: 85% of farmers combine chemical and organic fertilizers and they do so because the latter cannot buy the organic fertilizer product on credit, it is difficult to access the sale place, and the product do not meet standard. About 89% of farmers report that they are willing to give priority to buy compost fertilizer if the following conditions are met: availability user manual or necessary information (11.3%), cheaper price or allowing payment on credit (11.2%), quality consistency (11.2%), and the delivery of the product or easy access to the sale place (9.2%). Taking in view of the above sets of findings, among others, the study develops strategies for market development and marketing. Four strategies emerge from adoption of this approach. There are: compost production strategy, compost pricing strategy, compost distributional strategy, and the compost use promotional strategy. Pre-requites for the first strategy of compost product include, among others, waste separation at source, development of the compost product to meet the national standard of organic waste in Thailand. The second strategy of the product price involves allowing purchase of compost on credit and setting the price at an affordable level. The third strategy involves developing a distributional network and an user-distributor relationship. The fourth strategy focuses on raising farmer awareness on market opportunity arising from the growing demand for organic products, which can be disseminated by undertaking a demonstration project |