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Mass-produced fertilizer is made of many components. Fertilizer can be made from a variety of ingredients which will likely include the by-product waste from utility sewage systems, lagoons, and other sources, often called "sludge." This method is highly regulated by government at all levels, and testing is required to ensure the quality. Material is pulled from many different places. The point of fertilizer is to replace the nutrients that the plants are pulling from the ground in order to grow. It used to be feasible to simply use your own fertilizer (from whatever animal manure you had in addition to composting), but with mass food production, it is no longer realistic in any kind of large setting to simply use your own organic source of fertilizer. Most fertilizers have phosphorus, nitrogen, potassium and other nutrients. These are all essential parts of the growing process. Each nutrient plays it's own part. The actual production of biosolids has many steps, with these nutrients being pulled from different sources: raw sources, waste sources and others. The entire process is closely monitored and all has to meet federal regulations for levels of the nutrients in the end result. After the fertilizer is produced, it has to be tested. There are different laboratories that will test it based on region and testing needs. The test ensures that the wastewater amount is less than a maximum percentage and that all samples meet this. If the samples do not meet criteria, then the production must begin again. All companies have to submit to testing in order to protect people from any harm that could come with using toxic levels of contamination in the manufacturing of the fertilizer. The testing includes packaging requirements, nutrient requirements and limits, distribution criteria and factory criteria (such as making sure that the ground underneath is lined to prevent anything from leaking in to the ground water). All of these criteria are important in the process of creating these biosolids. The EPA regulations protect the population from contamination of the ubiquitous biosolids usage. Government standards require safe levels of pathogens and metals and contaminants are met in the biosolids used in fertilizer production. This keeps public health as the priority with air, water and food safety. Biosolids testing is assures safety of fertilizer ingredients originating from wastewater. A heavily regulated industry, biosolids government standards must be met. Midwest Labs is an accredited independent lab for biosolids testing to make sure that all criteria are met. http://biosolidsmanagement.com
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