Is sewage sludge/cake used to make horticultural compost?

[GreenGui]

The bloke who empties our septic tank gets it all up his arms - no gloves etc. and thinks nothing of it. Drives off without even a thought of a basic hose down let alone a wash with soap and water. I just wave him off now rather than shaking his hand:laugh1:

 

We are moving over to dry toilets so I can keep the 'solids', compost them down and put them on the veg plot. Small holders long ago used to do this, in the UK it was called "dark earth". So long as it does not go anaerobic during the compost phase and is left for a year it can go straight on the plot and has no bad pong. We've become a bit soft really IMO, afraid of our own waste, so long as we follow basic hygiene and the scientific compost process what's the bother. I will admit however I would not like to do it for joe public, just my own family, double standards on my part??

[scbk]

At my parents house there's a few old blackcurrant bushes (been there for decades!) not far from the septic tank soakaway, every year there's a bumper crop of blackcurrants!

[skyhuck]

I can cope with mine and my families, but others

[eggsarascal]

I can cope with mine and my families, but others

 

Where there's muck, there's Brass:thumbup1:

[skyhuck]

Where there's muck, there's Brass:thumbup1:

 

For sure, there's money in things that most don't wish to do

[john p]

We have a compost toilet, gets mixed in with everything else compost wise and as said after a year it's fantastic stuff, the key is to keep the wee seperate, really stinks if you don't !

[mdt]

Sewage cake/sludge is a very restricted product in agriculture it can't just be put here and there as you like, a lot of paperwork and testing is involved in the distrubution of it. It's a very good fertiliser but certain crops cannot be planted after its been applied, vining peas is an example off top of my head I think it's 5 years between been applied and peas been allowed to grow. Hence why a lot of paperwork for traceability. We get a lot of the stuff regularly, only problem we have is that we have 24 hrs to incorporate it into the ground which doesn't always work out to things out of our control ie weather. Myself I wouldn't use it for growing veg personally.

[TimberCutterDartmoor]

I can cope with mine and my families, but others

 

+1.

 

Absolutely grim.

[Marko]

Make no mistake that sewage sludge/cake is widely used on agricultural land growing both crops and grazing land. Soil testing is done anyway so it is not that complicated or onerous (and in any case it is usually done by the Water authority who have no option but to get rid of every tonne of the sludge).

 

From the farmer's perspective, the "management" of the application process is just another part of cross compliance; nothing that special really - just a few rules to follow. Applied 'biosolid' works out at about half the cost per kilo of available nitrogen.

 

An overview is here: https://www.gov.uk/managing-sewage-sludge-slurry-and-silage