Dustbin Refuse Makes Excellent Manure for Farms

Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1940, Page 22 (Supplement)

Dustbin Refuse Makes Excellent Manure for Farms

Recent discussions at Hawera, Gisborne and other borough council meetings have drawn attention to the possibility of operating municipal piggeries from town . refuse. Nobody, however, seems to have thought of applying a similar scheme to the production of fertiliser. With slag practically unprocurable, and various other fertiliser substances short in supply, a huge store of potential humus badly required on Taranaki dairy farms lies ready to be tapped in the dustbins of householders, and in the refuse daily carted away from towns and cities of the Dominion. In England and Scotland this source of production stimulous has not been overlooked as it has in New Zealand. No less than 70 re-fuse-separating plants are in operation there, producing over 300,000 tons of screened dust annually. Until a few months ago this valuable organic material was used in the main for the levelling and reclamation of waste land. Only 30.000 tons, or practically 10 per cent., found its way to the farms. To-day large quantities of this material are being reserved for farm use. Since the outbreak of war efforts have been made by the salvage deartment of the Ministry of Supply to interest farmers in "dustbin fertiliser" as a method of increasing the fertility of the land. Local authorities have been circularised to encourage the use of the material and in many cases the councils have replied

to the appeal by offering the farmers trial quantities free of charge. An official of the Ministry of Supply, Salvage Department, said recently that during the past few months the number of inquiries for crushecl and pulverised refuse has increased considerably. Farmers in many districts, especially in the north and around Perth and Dundee, he said, had' taken substantial quantities, and it was believed that with the possibility of a shortage of fertilisers landowners would use far more than the 30,000 tons which they now bought. As a rule, the official said, there should be no difficulty in obtaining quantities of screened dust. It could easily be bought at any of the 70 refuse disposal works at approximately ls per ton. Experiments by farmers in many parts of Britain have proved that screened dust, if correctly applied, can be beneficial, both to arable and grassland, especially when the land is to be used for a root or cereal crop. In. Holland screened dust finds a ready sale among the farmers who are firm believers in its usefulness both for its physical and fertilising value. Mr. Williams Strain, a leading authority on screened dust, has suggested "that the products should rank for subsidy under the Agricultural Act to the same extent as basic slag. He said that screened dust "supplies all the non-fm-portant minor elements in considerable quantities, and the others in smaller amounts" and is "the only fertilis«* used to-day which supplies all those elements in one dressing." Experiments carried out at the Hannah Research, Institute, Ayr, with the application of the screened dust on pasture land have been reported as very satisfactory.