While in Poland we stopped at one farm where we were served an
incredibly fine meal. After lunch I went walking around the farmyard and
on spying out the outhouse I went to investigate as was my duty. Wonder
of wonders someone had taken the effort to crawl down under the outhouse
and spread out fresh clean newspaper. They had done a real good job that
would have made my grandmother happy. I thought to myself, "My, is this
hospitality or what?"


Minn. Farmers Use Human Waste Fertilizer

By Associated Press

October 13, 2003, 8:57 AM EDT

DULUTH, Minn. -- Farmers in northeast Minnesota are using a fertilizer
rich in phosphorus, nitrogen and organic matter that can boost crop
yields by 80 percent. Best of all, it's free.

The problem, for some, is that it's made of treated human waste, which
opponents say is environmentally unsafe and unhealthy for animals and
other people.

"It's disgusting to think that everything we pour down our drains and
flush down our toilets, in our homes and hospitals and paper mills, is
ending up on our local farms," said Inese Holte, an area resident and
longtime opponent. "What we're doing to our rural neighbors is awful.
The farmers will take it because they are hurting and it's free. But we
shouldn't be giving it to them at all."

But proponents say it's the ultimate in recycling.

"We're giving nutrients back to the land that we took out of it," said
Lauri Walters, environmental program coordinator for the Western Lake
Superior Sanitary District.

Using human waste as fertilizer is nothing new. Asian cultures have done
it for centuries. In Milwaukee, sludge has been treated, dried, bagged
and sold to Midwest gardeners for more than 60 years.

In Minnesota, all but one of the state's 250 municipal treatment plants
that produce sludge at least some of it to the land. The only exception
is Grand Rapids, which landfills all its sludge because it's mostly
paper mill waste too fibrous to spread.

Jorja Dufresne, who oversees the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's
sludge-regulation program, says about one-third of all sludge created in
the state ends up on fields.

Since 1992, when Congress banned the dumping of treated sludge in
oceans, land application has skyrocketed past incineration and
landfilling, the other two approved options for sludge disposal.

The EPA promotes spreading it as fertilizer, calling it the preferred
disposal option. Incineration is less favored because it requires the
consumption of fuels that contribute to air pollution. And burying the
stuff takes up space in hard-to-permit landfills.

Sludge opponents aren't convinced the substance is safe. They point to a
2002 National Academies of Science report that found EPA regulation of
sludge is based on "outdated science."

Tom Richards, who owns land in Blackhoof Township in Carlton County,
says the sludge smells bad, especially when it's not turned into the
soil immediately. He believes there are too many questions about what's
in the sludge to allow continued spreading on fields.

"Nobody likes sewage sludge, just as nobody likes pollution," Richards
added. "It's just that some people are unjustly profiting from it at the
expense of everyone and everything else, especially our soils and waters."

Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press



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This is a signature file: "Beaver had invented a 'portable kitchen garden weighing no more than a pound. It was a mica box containing a synthetic earth in which he planted certain fast-growing seeds. Every other day each one of these devices produced a ration of green vegetables sufficient for one-man -- plus a few delicious mushrooms. He had also tried to exploit modern methods of tissue culture. Instead of raising cattle, he said to himself, why not raise beefsteaks directly? But his experiments had not advanced beyond the stage of requiring heavy and fragile equipment that produced a revolting slime, and he gave up the effort. We would do better going without meat." René Daumal, Mount Analogue.

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