In the landfills, waste just fills up a hole in the ground. But
some products that normally end
up there are finding new life in the land as nutrients for
crops.

“We’ve found a way to use things like wallboard, fly ash and
composted yard trimmings on
row crops,” said Glen Harris, a University of Georgia Extension
Service scientist.

“It’s really a win-win-win situation,” said Harris, who
specializes in environmental soils and
fertilizer. “The people who have this ‘waste’ are happy to be
rid of it, taxpayers don’t have to
pay for it in the landfill and farmers can get it for a
competitive price.”

As Georgia landfills quickly fill, the cost to dispose of
construction and other waste keeps
rising. New Georgia laws ban yard trimmings from landfills,
too.

Harris, working with UGA engineer Mark Risse and a number of
county agents, private
companies and local governments, is finding answers to these
problems. The waste products,
he said, can be useful as soil amendments, fertilizers and
liming material.

“We’re working with 10 products that can be used in commercial
agriculture and home
gardens,” he said.

All types of crops require calcium, potassium, nitrogen,
phosphorus and many other nutrients.
Composted yard trimmings are very rich in organic matter.
Construction wallboard is made
from the same gypsum that peanut farmers use to supply calcium
to their crop.

Newspaper recycling fly ash is the ash that flies up with the
smoke when wood and coal are
burned in a stage of the recycling process. The fly ash, Harris
said, is another good source of
calcium.

Wood ash from the tree limbs, bark and “junk wood” pulp and
paper mills can’t process is
good, too, he said. It’s rich in potassium and organic matter.

But don’t rush out to the landfill for these nutrient sources
for your garden or farm, Harris
said.

“You have to know what’s in it,” he said. Harris answers these
questions before he tests
products as a soil amendment:

* What is the nutrient and how concentrated is it?

* Is it safe — does it contain heavy metals or other toxins?

* How does it fit into your fertilization plan?

* How much does it cost, compared to other sources of the same
nutrient?

“All these questions have to be answered before the product is
ready to use as a soil additive,”
he said.

Harris said some of the reclaimed nutrient sources are more
ready for farmers to use than
others. Fly ash, for instance, can go straight into the
spreader.

“But we’re still working on how to sift the paper coating out of
the crushed wallboard,” he
said. “We hope to have that method ready for the 1998 crop
season.”