No manure from meat eaters is the rule of thumb. However, properly composted human waste is just as good and safe as any. I don't use it on our landscape, but here has been experimenting and demonstration projects where high rise office complexes have used gray water from a septic system in their building to water and provide nutrients to plants within the building - Most common I saw and read about was large atriums with planter boxes at each floor level ringing the walls with many windows that received a constant flow of gray water from the septic system. It circulated in a sandy soil mix with good drainage, and what little extra remained was pumped to a "green" rooftop.
My entire time, over 12 years, on the utility commission I questioned why we needed to discharge our water into the river. We are outgrowing out system, and deal with max limits for treatment. The only thing they test for is suspended solids, and we often fail due to algae growth. Rather than building a ten million dollar mechanical system, I pushed to purchase a 1/4 of land with hills and large flat bottom next to our ponds, operate the ponds as we do now, but pump the "clean" water to the hill tops where there would be another five acre pond. As this pond overflowed the water would run down the hillsides to the bottom, which would become a natural slough filter - just as nature has done since the beginning of time. For the one or two of you who agree with me, I have been told by our union employees (who make money operating our 12 million dollar reverse osmosis water treatment facility very poorly), our city engineer (who makes his living from a "small" retainer + a percentage of every dollar we spend on research, bidding and constructing items, and experts who make their living developing and selling waste water treatment systems that I am a total idiot.
MBTV
Forum Index
Help
Calendar
Contact Info
Register as a member
