[USCC] Vol 30, Issue 6--response to Frank and Dave.

[Edo McGowan]

To the gentlemen out there, allow me to answer some of these issues as presented in Compost Digest, Vol 30, Issue 6.

Frank, thanks for the thoughtful observations. Allow me to comment.  You note that----IF THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH (TOXINS REMAIN) THERE NEEDS TO BE ANOTHER METHOD OF TREATMENT FOR THE FEEDSTOCK TO BLAME BE IT YARD WASTE, MANURES OR BIOSOLIDS.-----Firstly, allow me to assume that when you mention TOXINS, you also mean all contaminants, especially pathogens and the genetic material that makes them such, that is my area of interest. Secondly, those in composting are relying on a feedstock that is presumed to have been adequately reviewed by those sending them this material. That, I think, is how the process was designed to work. BUT THOSE DESIGNING THE SYSTEM OFTEN EITHER DID NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY WERE DOING OR THEY PURPOSEFULLY DESIGNED IT TO NOT LOOK AT SOME THINGS. In either case, as it turns out, what the compost industry has for years been receiving has been bad information on feedstock. You have been living in an inadvertent fiction.  You need, however, to discuss this with those that designed the system, not me for pointing this out. But I doubt that those that designed the system would now admit their complicity in this and would thus instead attempt to shift blame. If you want an expanded background on this, I will discuss it in another post.

Dave, I also thank you for your thoughtful comments. You note that-------MOTHER NATURE HAS BEEN TAKING CARE OF HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS AND CONTAMINATED FECAL MATTER, FLESH AND BONE FROM HUMANS AND ANIMALS FOR A LOT LONGER THAN MAN HAS HAD INDOOR PLUMBING AND SEWAGE TREATMENT SYSTEMS. ------------Unfortunately a lot of this work by Mother Nature, predates the sudden and rapid rise of the human population and its use of sewers to carry municipal and industrial waste. As it is now, SHE is a bit oversubscribed, HER absorptive capacities are now often exceeded, and the populations under HER care have reached the levels where there are increasing opportunities for easy pathogen movement. Our antibiotic defenses are breaking down, our health care costs are out of hand, and we are in trouble. Those designing the system of sewage treatment plants and the standards and rules that govern them and those that run them have fallen way behind the knowledge curves needed to meet these challenges. The result is that what MOTHER NATURE once might have taken care of is now merely nostalgia and wishful retrospective thinking---sorry sir, but that is reality. It is not the fault of the compost industry per se, but falls upon those who designed what was to be a trusted system. 

In the past and before the chemical and antimicrobial generations what you note here------- I DON'T BELIEVE THAT I WOULD BE TOO CONCERNED ABOUT PUTTING ANIMAL MANURE ON MY GARDEN, LEAVING IT THERE FOR TWO OR THREE MONTHS AND PLANTING POTATOES, CUCUMBERS, SQUASH, OR ANY OTHER EDIBLE PLANT IN IT. WOULD YOU?--------- Would probably be true. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. We are not talking about dung from my boyhood pony or old Brown Bossy or the chickens and goats that used to be part of our daily life as kids before WW-2. We are discussing industrial sludge mixed with pharmaceuticals, hospital sewage, path-lab waste, ground up needles, extracted body fluids, discharge from dialysis centers and other areas that create some serious pathogens.  This then goes into a sewer plant built to designs and specifications developed almost a half century ago, when little of this was understood. In the interim the level of antibiotic resistance has, for years, been climbing and has now reached the level of a GLOBAL CRISIS---per WHO designation. There are serious bugs coming out of these centers and going into sewer plants where they are multiplied, not killed, and that are resistant to all known antibiotics---and this stuff is sent to farm lands and composting operations. There are enough papers out on the transfer of genetic information at elevated temperatures to warrant serious review by your industry. These papers should have been read by those setting up standards, but these people hardly understand their import and were often never trained to do so. The blind leading the blind. Thus, again, the responsibility seems to fall back on industry.  I have rarely seen someone in government that is as sharp as their counterparts in industry—their drivers are different.

As noted in your post---------I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHERE THE IDEA OF HOSPICE OR MORTUARY OR HOSPITAL WASTES FALL INTO YOU FEAR FACTOR YOU INTEND TO PORTRAY, BUT ANY CONTAMINATED WASTES ARE INCINERATED, NOT THROWN IN THE SINK. THE BLOOD AND OTHER WASTE WASHED FROM UTENSILS AND EXCRETED BY PATIENTS WOULD BE THE SAME THAT ARE EXCRETED BY HUMANS IN SINKS AND TOILETS AT HOMES. SO, WHAT IS YOUR POINT? --------------My point is this, if one spends time reading through the permits to discharge from hospitals, path-labs, mortuaries, and dialysis centers, and sees actually what is allowed, this gives one an entirely different perspective. When on top of this one begins to understand how pathogens are amplified within sewer treatment works and then in the preparation of sludge, one would probably not ask such questions. I invite you to spend some time delving into the permits from these institutions and then reinitiate this conversation. 

I think that is enough today---thanks gentlemen for your consideration.

Cheers----------------Edo