Composting has become a popular option, but it can be expensive and does not work well for processing high-moisture waste. Increasingly, direct land application of organic waste is seen as a low-cost option that allows a waste product to be used beneficially for crop production. Many types of organic waste products are being directly applied to land. Agricultural waste such as manure and livestock bedding has been land applied for centuries. Land application is the primary method of utilizing sewage sludge biosolids from more than 130 Kansas wastewater treatment systems.
Farmers are accustomed to dealing with manure, and sewage sludge application is highly regulated.
Today however, waste products considered for land application include yard waste, supermarket vegetable waste, restaurant and institutional food waste, grain handling waste, a wide variety of waste products from the food processing industry, and many other sources. Most farmers are unfamiliar with land applying these products that are, for the most part, unregulated, or for which specific standards are not established. Organic waste products tend to vary widely in content. It ranges from nearly dry products to materials that are mostly water. The only thing the products have in common is that they all contain at least some organic material, and they may contain from minute to significant amounts of nutrients beneficial to plants.