Reply #42: Industrial agriculture uses fertilizers with hazardous waste, even low level radioactive waste!!!!

[AikidoSoul]

Some years back Duff Wilson of the Seattle Times (now with the New York Times) wrote an investigative reporting series about how hazardous wastes are routinely recycled into fertilizers, and these haz wastes are NOT REQUIRED TO BE LISTED ON THE LABEL. The people who use them are completely clueless. As shocking as this seems, this activity is actually legal and in keeping with the laws of the U.S. Wilson was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for the 29 part series. He also wrote a book on this topic.

What we learned is so horrific that even if you are a cynical person, it will cut you to the soul to realize how our government fails miserably to protect us from harm. The U.S. DOES NOT REGULATE fertilizers and neither does it regulate the use of hazardous wastes being put into these products. OTHER INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES HOWEVER DO REGULATE FERTILIZERS.. EVEN CANADA. After this series was printed, Washington state began a process to regulate fertilizers in that state, but because it is a single state, this is an iffy venture.

Worse, the U.S. EPA allows the most toxic industries to PROFIT from dispersing its hazardous wastes all over the country by permitting them to be "recycled" into fertilizers. Our government even permits low level RADIOACTIVE hazardous wastes to be "recycled" into fertilizers!!! Normally these hazardous wastes would go to superfund sites, or other haz waste facilities and the polluting industries would be CHARGED for putting them there -- but because of a LOOPHOLE in the law, the EPA allows them to "recycle" them and the polluting industries can actually sell them to fertilizer companies. When converted into an agricultural "product" it loses its haz waste status!

This disgusting mix is then...

Spread on agricultural fields.
Spread on your lawns.
Spread on your vegetable garden!!

The practice of recycling hazardous wastes into fertilizers AFFECTS ALL TYPES OF FERTILIZERS ... NOT JUST THOSE USED ON FARMS. The Seattle Times paid to have many types of fertilizers analyzed, and then responded to citizen requests AND TESTED FERTILIZERS ADVERTISED FOR HOME USE. THESE ANALYSES FOUND THAT MOST THEM CONTAINED HAZARDOUS WASTES LIKE THE ONES FOUND IN FARM FERTILIZERS!

Some links to the articles in this series are below. I think this is extremely important for everyone to know and to spread to those you love.

Other questions you might begin to ask would be.... "are the fertilizers used in Chem-Lawn products any better?" (I would bet my life that they are not) Do they have an ecological program? I doubt it! They use highly toxic pesticides and fungicides....why would they make an effort to exclude haz wastes in their products? Would they be willing for us to spot check them and have them analyzed?
Waste Management, Inc. tried to buy Tru-Green (lawncare chain) a few years back. I suspect it was to "recycle" its waste.

And here are a number of links to a few of the 29 articles that were part of the series at the Seattle Times entitled, "Fear in the Fields: How Hazardous Wastes Become Fertilizers" (not all the articles are available):

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/special/fear_fields.html

When this Seattle Times series first came out, outraged citizens and politicians contacted the EPA which said it would "bring under review" this activity, but predicted that it would take a long time to complete. Thus far, there has been no word whatsoever that this activity has received any change in status.


RESOURCES about home fertilizers:

Home Fertilizers: Tests Find Some Safe, Some Not

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=2751213&date=19980517

Another travesty -- it is known by the feds that many leafy plants take up heavy metals and yet no research is done to find out how that affects the health of mammals. The only person in the U.S. that's studying this (that I know of) is one lonely scientist at the Univ. of Washington that struggles for funding.


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