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Useing recycled wood and sewage

jamesholtjamesholt Posts: 593
in Problem solving
My friend had a tremendous bounty of veg last year.  I asked him his secret he said dyno dirt.   Dyno dirt is compost made from recycling landfill tree mulch, old veg and recycled solids from sewage!   Would you use it in your garden?
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  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Not personally because I can’t access our cesspit but when it’s been emptied, the solids go on the ground to fertilise the fields,  it’s piled in heaps, sprinkled with lime then spread.  I don’t quite understand ‘landfill tree mulch’. But it sounds good. 
    If I had access to it,  I would use it. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited December 2023
    jamesholt said:
     recycled solids from sewage!   Would you use it in your garden?
    Pre-industrially, sludge would just turn into earth when given enough time and processed properly - much like compost. Would I be happy for that to be used in my garden and on crops (given lots of time for it to break down pathogens completely)? Absolutely. Life waste is a part of the life cycle. 

    There are concerns now around what is held in biosolids these days - PFAs, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, plastics.

    Apparently 80% of UK post-human sludge is used on agricultural fields. A small fraction is burnt to generate energy. Burning doesn't delete the associated problems. The UK generates over 3 million tonnes of biosolids, so there would be a question of what else to do with the vast amount we generate.



  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    They’ve always used it,  lucky these days it gets limed first,  back years ago it was used straight on the fields.  People use compost toilets all the time in the country,   I can’t see that it shortens lives anymore than the loads of other rubbish we get served up these days. 

    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • jamesholtjamesholt Posts: 593
    Thank you!  I feel better about using it.  Our city is keen on trying to reuse recycle as much as possible.
  • jamesholtjamesholt Posts: 593
    Landfill tree mulch is the mulch made from grinding up tree limbs.  In the past it was either burned or put into the landfill.  Today it is a valuable commodity. 
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    jamesholt said:
     Our city is keen on trying to reuse recycle as much as possible.

    I suspect it might have been using sludge on the fields for a long time but wasn't shouting about it. It's worth exploring for your location.
  • PalustrisPalustris Posts: 4,307
    I used to be able to buy bags of sterilised sewerage sludge from Huyton Sewage Farm. Grew a lovely crop of tomatoes each year. Sadly not available like that any more.
  • thevictorianthevictorian Posts: 1,279
    It used to be called night soil.

     
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Yes!  In Victorian times someone’s job  would be to collect the piss pots and take them to the depot.
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • PalustrisPalustris Posts: 4,307
    Never mind in Victorian times, there were Night Soil men  still working in Warrington in the late 1950's.
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