Quote:
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.
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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