Scots EHOs demand stricter rules on human waste dumping

26 February 1998

Scots EHOs demand stricter rules on human waste dumping

SCOTTISH environmental health officials urged the Government to impose tighter controls on the dumping of human “organic waste” on farmland.

In a report published by Perth and Kinross council, the EHOs said it was a danger to public health.

They said the controls on the use of human waste as fertiliser were “dangerously out of date” and could spread disease on agricultural land.

Disposal of such waste on farmland in Britain is set to double over the next decade, to around 1 million tonnes a year, according to The Guardian. This follows a European Union order that sea dumping be phased out by 1999.

Some of the major supermarket chains are reviewing their approach to the use of human fertiliser on land used to grow produce or rear livestock.

Water companies are offering untreated human excrement to farmers free of charge as “a valuable resource full of nutrients and organic matter”.

• The Guardian 26/02/98 page 6