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  • From: Rain Tenaqiya <raincascadia@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Re: using municipal sludge
  • Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 13:29:21 -0700 (PDT)

I would like to know more about what kinds of biocides, pharmaceuticals, and
other organic chemicals can be taken in by plants. In my biology classes, I
was taught that plant cell membranes are very selective about what they let
inside when it comes to organic compounds. Most testing for crop residues
seems to focus on the outside of the plant rather than the inside. What
kinds of things could a plant intake that could cause problems for people? I
think this is an important question, not to be used as a way to justify using
nasty chemicals on farm land, but to utilize existing wastes and soils that
may not be perfectly "organic."

Many of the substances commonly used in households are relatively benign once
introduced back into the environment (this has nothing to do with their
manufacture, with often has much more impact). For example, Draino is mostly
just very alkaline salts and would cause no problems for humuns eating plants
grown in soil contaminated with it (assuming the plants could still grow in
that soil). Most detergents, soaps, and cleaning break down into basic
chemicals, some of which feed plants. Biocides and pharmaceuticals are
another story. If they are long-lived (like Prozac is proving to be), then
they could potentially be taken up by plants and eaten by people, which isn't
a nice thought. They might even be transformed into something worse in the
process.

But in the ecotopian communities I envision, this would hopefully not be a
problem and we could return humunure back to the soil on a large scale,
closing the nutrient loops and creating sustainable culture. Even now, it
would probably be better to return sewage from cities to farms than to mine
and/or deplete soils. I wonder what a cost/benefit analysis would say?

Rain


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