Urban waste applications

The second SICS, a soil amendment consisting of urban sludge, is used by some farmers in the region. Despite its use, this practice is very controversial, and stakeholders felt it needed to be thoroughly tested before there is a wider uptake. Concerns include the waste containing too many heavy metals leading to disease for crops and potentially consumers. The study sites involved 2 trial fields, one field fertilized every spring for 3 years with urban sludge and a control field fertilized exclusively with a conventional mineral amendment. Soil sampling results point to a significant increase of many indicators of soil quality for the trial field with the urban sewage sludge amendment, confirming the effectiveness of the technique. In terms of heavy metals, the concentration in soil is slightly higher for sludge experiment than for the control, however, it is still below the maximum concentration authorized by law. The release of these results is very important due to the polemic surrounding urban sludge fertilization. So far, the results are encouraging and point towards this being a viable waste resource to be reused as fertiliser for food growth. A poster about the trial and results has been presented to academics at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) conference and is further planned for publication in a national paper in order to reach a larger public audience.

For more information about this  Study Site, please contact Anne Karine This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.