[GWL]: Since Silent Spring

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I was up all night reading a book that’s the scariest thing since Rachael Carson’s “Silent Spring.” Called “Fateful Harvest,” it details the way hazardous wastes are “recycled” into fertilizers. In the process, incredible amounts of heavy metals are being deposited on the land.

People, this is a must read book!

Duff Wilson almost won a Pulitzer Prize for his series of articles on this problem which ran in the Seattle Times. Now he’s gone deeper into the problem.

Seems that there are virtually no regulations regarding what goes into fertilizers, except that the N-K-P content must be listed. Anything else can be legally added. What’s more, there are no rules regarding the content of bulk soil amendments.

As a result, hazardous wastes from major industries are sold to fertilizer manufacturers, who add them to their products. This is, apparently, widespread, and effects home-gardening products as well as factory farm chemicals. Even so-called organic fertilizers can, and do, have these dangerous additives. And nobody, from the USEPA and Agriculture Department to state level regulatory agencies, to farm groups seems to care.

Throughout the book Wilson asks one question: How can something be a dangerous hazardous waste when it comes out of a factory, remain a hazardous waste while it's being transported, be a hazardous waste when it goes through the door of the fertilizer maker, and then, miraculously, no longer be either dangerous, toxic, or a waste when it comes out the back door.

That's a question that really needs to be answered.

Just thought I’d share this with you, and recommned you read the book: Fateful Harvest, Duff Wilson (HarperCollins, NY).

 Brook