Recycled human waste on hay fields

[jinman]

I have a neighbor who told me he bought some round bales of hay for his mules and later found out that human waste had been used to fertilize those fields. He said he rolled the hay off into a gully and will not feed it to his mules. Personally, I don't see what the big deal is.

Septic pumpers are supposedly allowed to chemically treat raw sewage they remove from septic tanks and then spread it onto surface hayfields. Of course, several cities sell what they call "rich soil" from the sewage plants to people to put onto their lawns. This all sounds like good practice to me, but some folks evidently have problems with recycled human waste.

I'm coming down on the side of the recyclers on this from my initial thoughts. What does the TBN braintrust think of this, and what problems might occur?

[radioman]

hmm this sounds like a job for mike rowe on dirty jobs to investigate and get some facts?

[CurlyDave]

The one drawback I know of it that Lou Gehrig's Disease has been associated with the use of treated sewage as fertilizer.

I don't believe there is definite proof, but there doesn't have to be for me to make the decision that I am never going to use it...

[jinman]

CurlyDave, you mean using it for human food/vegetable crops directly, right? I don't believe that is allowed in the USA. In this instance, I'm talking about hay for animals. I believe sunlight is one of the "great purifiers" and grasses get a lot of exposure to sunlight before they are cut and baled.

[Thomas]

There was farmer in our area stop useing type of fertilize in cow corn fields couple years ago do to rubbish..mostly plastic,small piece of tin.

[oldnslo]

Was this from a municipal sewer plant or a single family residence? Heavy metals are a concern from municipalities I am not sure if these are in a large enough concentration to be an issue from a single residence.

We used to pump out tank and spread it on the fields.

Roy

[jimmyj]

I am with you Jinman. Probably OK. But, that said with all the hormones and medications and stuff there should be concern. Sun and oxygen are great purifiers but who knows how they work against things that are not part of the natural chain of events.

They made it illegal around here a few years ago I am pretty sure. We have another issue with "sludge" which is a byproduct of paper production. They spread it on fields and the community is very up in arms about it.

[bstrom]

Sounds like a bad idea to me. I'd be concerned about all the drugs people take and products containing heavy metals dumped down toilets. There are traces of prescription drugs in some of the water supplies already. I don't have the facts on this but I'm sure they are available.

[sweettractors]

With all the E-Coli outbreaks we have had in recent time, I am concerned about how that originates. Could it be treated human waste used for ferterlizer on the crops or hundreds of workers that were a 1/2 mile from the porta potties and had to do their business in the field? Ken Sweet

[mjarrels]

When I was in Korea, I was told not to eat veggies.

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