Serious question - does Diamond R Fertilizer

[malaise]

contain human waste? There's a 'shit storm' here in Jamaica over this fertilizer coming from the US. Any info available will be useful.

quotes

[kestrel91316]

1. Link to Diamond R website. You could email them and ask.

http://www.diamond-r.com/products.htm

[malaise]

2. Thanks

Not sure they would admit it since I saw a representative on TV spinning away an explanation.

[kestrel91316]

9. FYI, Milwaukee WI has for many years produced a famous fertilizer

called Milorganite. It is dried processed sludge from the sewage treatment system there.

The biggest complaint about treated sewage sludge as fertilizer is the heavy metals that it can contain. It's no more or less bad than treated steer manure from a bacterial perspective. The bad bacteria are LONG since gone.

And yes, I have formally studied the microbiology of water and sewage in college. I have no problem with using it, particularly where starvation might be the only other alternative.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Shit storm.... funny that, I can tell you that

milorganite is pretty crappy.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milorganite
Milorganite is the brand name of an organic nitrogen fertilizer produced by the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. Popularized in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s, it consists of processed sludge from the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District Jones Island Wastewater Treatment Plant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The fertilizer is made up of microbes that have digested nutrients from the sewage stream along with added iron, used to strip phosphorus from the waste water flowing into Lake Michigan.

The name Milorganite is a contraction of the phrase Milwaukee Organic Nitrogen, and was the result of a 1925 naming contest held in National Fertilizer Magazine.

Milorganite(r) 5-2-0 is sold throughout the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and Pacific Rim as a homeowner and golf course fertilizer.

[malaise]

6. It's one thing to use it for lawns and golf courses

but it's being sold to farmers for domestic crops.

sp

[HysteryDiagnosis]

10. I don't see the problem.... most people have a sewer system in

their front yard and a well perhaps in the back. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. :)

[moundsview]

4. What would be the problem if it did?

I've been using Milorganite for decades. Good stuff and solves another problem.

http://www.milorganite.com/home/

[tangent90]

5. I have no idea but in my frequent travels to Jamaica I see human waste routinely

being spread on vegetable crops (and poured untreated into the rivers) in Westmoreland.

[malaise]

7. I've never seen

human waste used on food crops here, but if you're correct that suggests we have more than enough 'shit' going on here already. :D

[tangent90]

11. We visit our friend, a Rasta, he lives about 10 miles northeast of Savlamar

in the hills. There is a spring-fed river locally called 'roaring river' that starts out pristine and is a sewer by the time it gets to the coast. A common sight is a tanker truck that has been used to haul heavy heating/cooking oil around that needs washing and they just drive it into the river and wash it down. All the crud from that cleaning just drifts downstream and gets on the laundry the folks are trying to wash. It's pretty much a "out of sight, out of mind" situation.

[originalpckelly]

8. I think we can be certain of it, crap is the USA's biggest export.