Beware of sewage-sludge compost

[Vespertino]

Well, poop is natural, sometimes I think people forget about that. Mammals poop, amphibians poop, worms poop, birds poop, and it's been going into the ground to help fertilize the soil (where microbes break it down) and recycle organic material for millions of years. Nothing has changed except for industrial waste and pharma chems. So if it's clean poop those were probably some of the healthiest rice patties in China you'll ever see.

[bughunter99]

Originally Posted by Redbaron

Don't believe everything you read. That post has so many 1/2 truths and misinformation mixed in with legit concerns that it looses credibility.

Anti-biotic resistant e-coli (pathogen strains) is a product of factory farming livestock. ie CAFO's, not human waste. Also the "prions" are not a "new life form" LOLZ Not everything with "bio" is sludge! LOLZ "Certified Organic" compost CAN'T use human waste so that's simply false. Biosolids are treated sludge. So it depends on the treatment if it is toxic or not. Pretty much the whole article smells (pun intended) of a typical propaganda piece.

Of course that doesn't mean that all biosolids are safe either. There are plenty of "biosolids" that are not properly treated and applied to conventional agriculture. (not certified organic)

The primary reason biosolids are not allowed in organic is because of the other things in sludge besides human waste. Human waste is fine when composted properly. Municipal sludge contains lots of other things besides human waste.

Actually plenty of humans are carrying around antibiotic resistant ecoli these days. Five-ten years ago it was pretty rare. These days it is in pretty much every hospital of any size in the country. The resistant strains do not cause more virulent, or more deadly disease. Just disease that needs more antibiotics to treat. The really bad strain is not resistant, it just secretes a whole lot of toxin. Ecoli 0157-H7. That one can kill people. Its less likely to be in human sludge than farm waste.

All the clarification aside. I agree the original post is contains a whole lot of inflammatory misinformation.

[bughunter99]

Originally Posted by Vespertino

Well, poop is natural, sometimes I think people forget about that. Mammals poop, amphibians poop, worms poop, birds poop, and it's been going into the ground to help fertilize the soil (where microbes break it down) and recycle organic material for millions of years. Nothing has changed except for industrial waste and pharma chems. So if it's clean poop those were probably some of the healthiest rice patties in China you'll ever see.

Biosludge is not just poop. It is EVERYTHING that is flushed that they can't/don't/won't remove.

[Vespertino]

Originally Posted by bughunter99

Biosludge is not just poop. It is EVERYTHING that is flushed that they can't/don't/won't remove.

I know that. I wasn't referring to biosludge, which is why I said "human poop" and not "biosludge".

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by bughunter99

Actually plenty of humans are carrying around antibiotic resistant ecoli these days. Five-ten years ago it was pretty rare. These days it is in pretty much every hospital of any size in the country. The resistant strains do not cause more virulent, or more deadly disease. Just disease that needs more antibiotics to treat. The really bad strain is not resistant, it just secretes a whole lot of toxin. Ecoli 0157-H7. That one can kill people. Its less likely to be in human sludge than farm waste.

All the clarification aside. I agree the original post is contains a whole lot of inflammatory misinformation.

You forget one of the key factors in the change of E-coli. The E-coli has always been found in cattle. It is part of the natural flora of their digestive tracts. But you are correct, it never used to be common in human flora. But there are actually TWO main changes in E-coli. The first is many strains gradually evolved to survive in a more acidic environment, and it also has evolved to be resistant to a wide range of antibiotics.

BOTH these changes are a result of CAFO's. You couldn't devise a better breeding ground for dangerous pathogens if you tried. Cattle eat more grains, which makes their digestive systems more acidic, and they are given antibiotics in constant low doses in their feed. So the previously harmless e-coli in animal waste has become potentially dangerous to us humans.

In years past, our more acidic digestive system handled killing the E-coli from cattle, and if for some reason it didn't, antibiotics worked to get rid of it easily.

Now because of the inhumane and dangerous way we raise animals, we are breeding dangerous strains of E-coli and other pathogens.

In fact in fact, E. coli O104:H4 is resistant to at least 14 different types of antibiotics and highly toxic because it picked up the genes for producing shiva toxins, presumably by horizontal gene transfer!

E. coli on the March

You would have thought us humans would have learned the dangers of CAFOs with the outbreak of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (Mad cow), and learned some humility, but no, We didn't learn a gosh darnoodley thing.

Makes me even more mad because it is getting worse.

But it doesn't have to be that way. There are environmentally friendly alternatives that respect animals key role in BOTH animal AND plant agriculture.

Chaffin Orchards

[bughunter99]

Oh definitely, I agree with all of this completely. My point (which was rather off topic) was that it is not just the misuse of abx in factory farming that is the issue. These bugs are also a result of the complete misuse of abx in humans. Usage when not warranted, improper use when it is.

I disagree in that I do think they learned some plenty from the BSE travesty.
Now there are strict laws and practices in place to prevent this here, in the UK, Japan etc. Sadly though I suspect that these laws were successfully passed in order to protect the almighty dollar. Humans and animal welfare was just a secondary benefit. Because of this I really think that the fastest answer to get those that practice these things to amend them will be to appeal to their pocket book. By getting people on board with first understanding that LABELING must be the law, and strictly enforced. Once labeled, those of us with the means to be discriminatory with what we buy will be able to start having some effect.

Stacy

[DTedquist]

I have worked as a wastewater treatment plant operator for over 22 years now. We treat ~8MGD.
Believe me you don't want municipal sludge in your garden. The stuff is nasty, full of metals, plastics, oils, latex, drugs, illegal drugs and used needles. If you take a minute to think of all the fluids and mucus etc. that the human body produces, all the chemicals we use in our homes , the drugs we take, the medical waste and disease that doesn't make it in a red bag for the incinerator but gets washed down the drain. Our plant influent can come in many colors from the industries, printers and metal plating dump to the waste stream after "pretreatment" . We even get leachate from the landfill! And yes metals are in there too - remind your friendly dentist to change the filter on his amalgam separator.
I don't believe the sludge from any WWTP will ever be safe for land application, and certainly not for fertilizer or soil amendment.
Would you park a portable outhouse in front of your local Walmart, collect some "pure" humanure, and feel confident using it for compost and garden use? Not me, no way.

[JamesL]

Dan,
Excellent "first hand" information. Thanks for sharing.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by DTedquist

I have worked as a wastewater treatment plant operator for over 22 years now. We treat ~8MGD.
Believe me you don't want municipal sludge in your garden. The stuff is nasty, full of metals, plastics, oils, latex, drugs, illegal drugs and used needles. If you take a minute to think of all the fluids and mucus etc. that the human body produces, all the chemicals we use in our homes , the drugs we take, the medical waste and disease that doesn't make it in a red bag for the incinerator but gets washed down the drain. Our plant influent can come in many colors from the industries, printers and metal plating dump to the waste stream after "pretreatment" . We even get leachate from the landfill! And yes metals are in there too - remind your friendly dentist to change the filter on his amalgam separator.
I don't believe the sludge from any WWTP will ever be safe for land application, and certainly not for fertilizer or soil amendment.
Would you park a portable outhouse in front of your local Walmart, collect some "pure" humanure, and feel confident using it for compost and garden use? Not me, no way.

I had some friends that worked at the waste treatment plant in a small town in Texas.
I even got to go to the place all of the time as we would deer hunt on the back side of it where the dumped the sludge.

The stories they told.
Then some time a go Austin had a problem with there so called Dillo Dirt.
It is a product they sell and use to spread on yards.
They also use it in their parks.
People that went to a concert ended up with rashes and all sorts of problems.
On top of that the Dillo Dirt is composted with yard waste yet another source of what I would call chemical hazards.
We all know what people put on there lawns.

As for the smell I have been to places in town where they spread it out.
It smells like a hog farm and sewer plant for days on end.
I want to sit by my garden and smell soil and plants not go out in the yard and smell a hog farm.

Worth

[drew51]

Well human waste is sold as fertilizer in every big box store. It is now approved for use on vegetables. Metals have been removed. I use it myself for my lawn. Greenest lawn on the block!

[Cole_Robbie]

Originally Posted by DTedquist

I have worked as a wastewater treatment plant operator for over 22 years now. We treat ~8MGD.
Believe me you don't want municipal sludge in your garden.

My uncle also has 20+ years at the waste water treatment plant, and he says the same thing.

There's a hippie commune not far from me, and they clean out their outhouses and spread it on their gardens once a year. I think they are just not smart enough to build a proper composting toilet. If they would just build one in the side of a hill, with little door to open at the bottom, and make it about 15 feet tall, then all they would have to do is wait a few years, and out of the bottom would come perfect humanure. It would look like any other compost, black dirt with a nice earthy smell.

[Worth1]

Anyone remember the out house/sewer garden.
I was raised up in an erea where many people still had out houses and our septic drained out to the edge of one of our hay fields.
There were always tomatoes and melons growing there.

Worth

[Wi-sunflower]

I grew up within smelling distance (with the right wind) of the Milorganite plant in Milwaukee. They were the first place to use the waste plant solids for fertilizer, since the late 1920s. BUT Milorganite is dried and ground to specific particle sizes. While it's used a lot on golf courses, it's also sold for lawns and yes, vegies. No it doesn't have a "pig farm" smell. It does have a distinctive smell but to me it's mostly "salty".

In the 70s for just a couple of years, there was a heavy metal warning on Milorganite. But then the city legislated that any industry using the sewage system had to pre-treat their water to remove heavy metals. This was also part of the EPA clean water stuff. Even a small company I worked for then had a person that tested the waste water and we didn't have heavy metals as part of our process. For us, we had to take out some fats.

Anyway, we use Milorganite and I have no problem with it.

The original post is full of 1/2 truths and outright bad science and is just plain inflammatory.

Carol

[FISHBONE]

I read up on it and now think the same about milorganite , I will use it on my lawn and sprinkle a bit around my tomato plants once they are in the beds.