John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, said the government’s oversight was not working, and pointed to cases in recent years where the rules had been violated, and concerns raised in the Environment Agency’s 2017 report over enforcement.
Sauven said: “The UK’s sewage sludge supply chains are already full of shady middlemen and waste brokers getting their hands dirty exploiting its opacity and the resulting regulatory failings. This is why the sludge that is spread on to our farms and fields has become such a toxic cocktail of plastics, chemicals and bacteria.
We can’t use artificial fertilisers according to Greenpeace. We’re all supposed to move to a vegetarian diet which means no cow crap to spread. And now we can use human sewage as fertiliser either. So, what in buggery are we supposed to be doing then John?
“Getting their hands dirty”?
Haven’t these people heard of muck-spreaders?
I think Greenpeace need to up their game, they are being left behind and becoming irrelevant. Be more like XR and BLM! Old 80’s Stalinists chaining themselves to a tree in a forest simply doesn’t cut it anymore, find a bridge! supprt the Palestinians! Topple the government and capitalism!
We can always spread Greenpeace press releases on our fields. They’re chock full of shit.
They expect and want us to starve, of course. De-population is what they want.
They want to ban plastics, chemicals and bacteria too. It is not as if they have a clue.
Although I wouldn’t call Harry King a shady middle man to his face.
I don’t suppose it is possible but wouldn’t it be interesting to send all the members of Greenpeace to an island somewhere? A tropical one perhaps. South Georgia seems a little harsh.
But they could show us all how it is done. Channel Four could film it. We could watch from the safety of our couches. Sofas wrapped in plastic, slathered in chemicals and not a few bacteria I am afraid.
How do you think that would work out? I believe Swmapies are almost 100% free range organic meat.
“This is why the sludge that is spread on to our farms and fields has become such a toxic cocktail of plastics, chemicals and bacteria.”
Since stored samples of human sewage were able to show that Covid actually arrived on the scene late last year, God knows how much of this “Deadly Disease” (sic) it now contains.
“Control The Spread” could take on a new meaning…
I wish they would make their mind up about this crap, if you venture onto any environmental or sustainability forum there are endless discussions about the best design of home composting toilet.
Needless to say the product of those toilets goes straight onto the vegetable patch.
Funnily enough, I was watching a documentary on just this subject this morning. I switched off after a few minutes because it was such bullshit (pun intended). The docu claimed that spreading slurry is very bad for fields, especially when they are left fallow and turn into meadows. The wildlife suffers and the only flowers that can grow are dandelions, because the “symbiotic” relationship between native plants and subterranean fungi has been broken by the over use of manure.
I was always told that the human digestive system was very inefficient and that one should avoid chucking shit straight onto fields because there are too many toxins still existing.
Chris won this thread…
if you venture onto any environmental or sustainability forum there are endless discussions about the best design of home composting toilet.
But that’s ok because their shit doesn’t stink.
‘ So, what in buggery are we supposed to be doing then John?’
Dying off from starvation, the ‘Green’ solution to the pestilence that is Man which plagues an otherwise perfect Planet.
‘… a toxic cocktail of plastics, chemicals and bacteria.’
Plastics are not toxic, because as GreenPiss keep telling us they do not break down, therefore they cannot dissociate into elements or reactive elements that would be toxic; bacteria are killed by sunlight; ‘chemicals’ (everything is a chemical – there is nothing in the Universe that isn’t) will be diluted by rain, wash down into the ground and filtered out.
No farmer would wittingly make his land toxic if he wants to grow crops or graze animals.
There was always a problem with heavy metals concentration in digested anaerobic sludge used as fertilizer.
Where’s Ecks? Purge, purge, purge
Human excrement is a far greater threat to humans than other excrements*.
I would be against its use as fertilizer. We want to stay away from it. Cattle manure a different story. In fact, 2 billion people dry it and use it for fuel.
*[Spell checker doesn’t recognize a plural for excrement.]
‘chemicals’ (everything is a chemical – there is nothing in the Universe that isn’t)
Disputable, if we want to exercise our pendantry muscles for the day.
A plasma (as in a mass of dissociated subatomic particles) would not be a chemical.
In fact most subatomic particles are not going to be classed as chemicals. Leptons, quarks, photons – to name a few.
You could argue that a proton could be considered a chemical (H+), but i get your point. 🙂
A couple of atoms were walking by a bar . . . .
‘chemicals’ (everything is a chemical – there is nothing in the Universe that isn’t)
Dark matter???
. . . one said, “I lost an electron in there last week.
Did a Democrat steal it?
Chemicals? Those damned women taking ‘The Pill’
Bacteria? WTF does the fool think is in his mouth, stomach & intestines and on skin? Has he never heard of “Pro-Biotics” like Actimel and Kaffir
He’s covered that: BBC R5: Food is too cheap
@Dave Ward
Very good
@Dr Evil
From? Are peeps eating Duracells? Dentists filter out and sell their amalgam, gold, platinum etc waste
@GC
..and the Bacteria propping up bar “I’ve lost my mitochondrion”
Waste brokers = bin men
“No farmer would wittingly make his land toxic if he wants to grow crops or graze animals.”
Hmmmm. Farmers are remarkably short sighted, for people that work with long cycles of production and own assets that are managed over decades rather than years.
The truth of the matter is this – once shoving sewage out to sea was banned, the water companies were up against a wall. They had all this shit and nowhere to get rid of it. Its a waste product, going to cost a fortune to dispose of properly. But wait, if we compost it we can market it as ‘fertiliser’ and then we can spread it on farmland. Hurrah, we’re saved, our multi-billion pound profits can continue!
Enter the farming industry, which can’t see past it own nose. Farmers have to accept prices handed down by others at virtually every turn – from world prices on their output, to the prices demanded by their suppliers. Farmers have no market power and are price takers at every turn. As JFK once said ‘The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways’. Now faced with someone who is desperate to get rid of something, who has no alternative other than the loss of virtually all their profits, what would you do? Stand together and demand that in return for taking this waste product that contains significant amounts of toxic metals among other things, the farming industry would demand payment, as part of a waste disposal process? Or do as the industry did, where every short sighted farmer could only see ‘cheap fertiliser’ and actually ended up paying the water companies for the right to take the stuff?
I won’t touch the stuff on my farm. Not so much because I think its toxic per se, (though I do wonder if the ‘analysis’ that is supplied with the material bears any resemblance to what is delivered in the lorries sometimes), its more the regulatory risk. History shows that the State is quite good at saying ‘X is perfectly safe’ and then changing its mind, leaving the person who used X holding a financial time bomb. Such as the case with asbestos for example. I can foresee a time when it will suddenly be decided that sewage sludge contains something awful that must no longer be allowed to be spread on farmland. Microplastics possibly for example. Suddenly all land that has had the stuff on them is rendered contaminated overnight. And its all the landowners responsibility – once the stuff is on your land its your responsibility, not the water companies. They are basically offloading their long term potential liabilities for this stuff onto every farmer stupid enough to take it. And they’re getting paid as well.
See what I mean about farmers and short term thinking?
The Chinese rural economy was (still is, to an extent?) for many centuries based on spreading night soil buckets on the fields. It doesn’t seem to have caused them more health problems than numerous other practices.
. . . are you sure?
@Jim
East of Scotland Water (state owned) and Scottish power built a plant to dry sewage then burn at Longannet – all approved. Once completed Gov’t suddenly found a reason to ban the burn
You are correct to be sceptical