What a stink......

Another baking hot dry day here in the Southeast, and we (the ones with noses) have had a pretty shabby day. Once again they are spreading human sludge - they call it biosolids. There has been a bit of a breeze, which spreads the ghastly whiff through the community like a poisonous fog, and the blasted stuff has steamed and festered in the sun.
Even the flies don`t seem to like it much, as they have arrived in our houses in their swarms to find shelter from the ungodly aroma - ending up dead in heaps on the window sills.... puts everyone off their food so it does.
It doesn`t seem healthy to me - not so bad if the muck comes from animals who chew the cud, but from human creatures who get on the beer and then pop down to the Indian restaurant for a curry ... it smells diabolical.
Do you agree? Can we get this horrible practice banned?

 

Know how you feel @Tetters as we have the same problem here for the last two weeks and it got so bad when we were out walking at the start of the week I thought I was going to throw up and the pile was in another village.

It seems to be most strong in the early morning and then round about teatime and through the evening.It has got so bad that villagers where we live are all complaining about it and even the local newspapers have got involved

We have noticed we have more flies this year than at other years and wear getting a lot of green coloured flies.We have to keep shooing them out as they do annoy me when they land on my legs and tickle.The upside is that next doors House Martins are having a good year and already have three chicks flying around catching their own food and I think they have more eggs/Chicks in the nest so it isn’t all gloom and doom as at least the wildlife are benefitting from them

If we get more of these hot summers I can only see the problem getting worse

 

We dont seem to get so much of this lately....touch wood. When we did it was the worst smell.
Surely it cant be healthy and for this reason should be discontinued.
Quite what we can do about it I dont know

 

Unless the rules have changed it may be worth looking into weather the biosolids is being used on crops for humans ie; milling wheat and brewing barleys as biosolids is not to be spread on ground for crops for human consumption, some of these rules are not policed there should be a paper trail there should be full tracabity, but things can be swaped in sheds

Even with grass, it can be spread on fields for silage but not on fields for grazzing cows/bullocks

But the rules may have changed so check it out first

 

Round us (and I mean AROUND us) the preferred muck is the hundreds of tons of chicken bedding from the chicken torturers near by. We were told that by law they have to plough it in within three days of spreading. BUT they say it is 3 days from finishing spreading,so by not doing all the fields they can get away with leaving the stench for weeks.
Farmer friend says that they are losing any benefit of the stuff as the ammonia dissipates if not ploughed in fairly quickly.

 

We used to experience similar pongs when caravanning at Roundhills in the New Forest. The local farmer had a dislike for 'Grockles' ( common name for caravanners. He would cover his foelds with chicken waste and leave it un-buried for a few days.

Reading briefly part of the Regulation relating to muck spreading, including 'biosolids' human waste etc. There are sugestions pertaining to the due consideration of local inhabitants. These of course are probably often overlooked by the farmer etc.

I believe the main government directive being is that the muck is immediately dug into the soil. Following such a directive would alleviate much of the smell.

Please take time to google. Muck spreading-Biosolids. What is the legal regulations?

An article by; Rachel Dring provides much information.

Hope this helps.

 

Not noticed it around here, but then we are all houses these days, if I could get hold of some I might spread it on my allotment, might give the neighbours a run for their money with the stinky barbeques. :rasp:

Anyway, only farm stinks we get are usually in the spring when some kind of waste, not sure what it is, is spread, it travels for miles and one year they blamed Dutch farmers.
Said the easterly wind was blowing it across.

 

Yep, I'd put up with the odd countryside pong, if I was living in the country.
Much better than traffic fumes,

 

I have lived and worked in the countryside here for about 40 years, and have certainly never worried about the farmyard smells, or mud on the lane, or cocks crowing at dawn, or noisy work on Sundays ...or anything else that goes with the country way of life.... however the stuff they spread here at the moment is unlike anything else I have experienced, and it worries me that it might not be a suitable commodity for health reasons.
Sometimes these errors are only discovered when it`s too late.

 

I agree with the above three comments; I live in the country too and farming is in the family. Good agricultural practice is to spread manure on the fields! There is nothing like a bit of FYM to get the veggies going....and going and going.

But I agree with the comments above about the sewage waste........I really don't think it's being dealt with well.....maybe it needs a bit more time to compost/rot down before it is spread. Don't really think a hot summer is the best time to spread it either. It is a cheap and useful form of fertiliser though and saves on the chemical fertilisers. We were offered it once when we were farming but turned it down as they wanted us to take far too much.

 

It must be treated.

 

I think the practice of putting human waste on the land will, one day, be seen as it is.....a potentially hazardous thing to do and will, I'm sure, be outlawed.

 

Marley, I don`t find it amusing, and 'stupid' seems a bit strong. A few years ago, when my kids attended the local village school, the farmers were spraying crops using a low flying plane. The chemicals they were using sprayed our gardens and our kids in the playground. Whatever they were using made our kids ill, and killed the bird population. I don`t know what substance they were using, but none of us used our crops that summer - in fact that is when I stopped growing veg.
Sometimes, we mere mortals should ask questions in my opinion, and not always exercise 'blind faith' in these matters.
Thalidomide was a miracle cure for morning sickness - look at the results of that.