If you'll continue to do the research - always a good idea - you should turn up some other important considerations.

Virtually all disease pathogens, both plant and those that might be transferred to humans, are destroyed in the composting process if the temperature reaches 135-140F and is maintained at that heat for 4-5 days. 160F is the temperature needed to kill off weed seeds and that's not always easy in a home system.

Clopyralid is now restricted from any residential use and is only registered for ag purposes, right of ways and certain turf management activities where any contaminated waste must be disposed of or composted on site. The chances of it getting into municipal compost is pretty slim. Aminopyralid is closely related but to my knowledge, not used in this country. A simple bioassay can be done to determine if either of these chemicals are present in municipal compost. And since the clopyralid scare in 2002, most municipal compost facilities do rudimentary testing for pathogens, heavy metals and other toxins on their product.

The majority of chemical pesticides are rather rapidly broken down by the composting process.

All in all, I'd be more likely to trust the quality of a municipal compost than I would of most home produced composts, simply because of the scale, the methods involved and the nearly constant activity of large commercial composting facilities and the higher heat most of them achieve and maintain. It's just a lot harder to accomplish in a backyard setting.

If you have concerns, visit your municipal operation and watch it in action. Ask your questions. Are the ingredients all from residential yard waste pick up or are there commercial contributors? If so, who are they? Inquire if they have any testing done. Then make your decision to purchase or not.

I agree with gardengal (we both knew it would happen, didn't we!). The clopyralid (klo PEER uh lid) scandal should be long over. Hopefully that was not a recent article you read. There is still in use in Texas another herbicide that has the identical effect as clopyralid. It is called picloram (PICK low ram) and seems to last forever no matter what happens to it. I can go buy it today with no license from any feed store - SCARY! You're supposed to have a state applicator's license but nobody checks.

Fortunately there is a very easy test for the home owner to test compost. Plant a couple beans in a pot. Take a small bucket or jar of water and dump a cup or so of compost into it. The picloram or clopyralid is extremely soluble in water so you can water the plant right away. If the plant dies in a day, don't use that compost.

Any other herbicides or pesticides or diseases should be decomposed by a commercial sized composting process, even if it is very slow and not technically hot enough to kill all the pathogens. Time heals all wounds in compost...except clopyralid and picloram.

Our town has a fantastic municipal composting site, with huge piles of leaves, grass clippings, and trimmings in various stages of decay. It is available to residents free for the taking, as much as you want (no dump trucks allowed though). I've been told that the finished compost has been decomposing for 3-4 years. I figure that it is unlikely that people have used pesticides on the leaves and that even if they have used lawn pesiticides, they are in small quantities and have mostly leached out over those 4 years of decomposition. But, this is just my guess. I've never had problems with weed seeds whatsoever. There are sticks, stones, and little bits of plastic debris in there, but not very many.

The compost starts out like this -
{{gwi:135335}}

And ends up like this -
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Hey folks, I'm glad I found this thread!

AS you may guess, I'm in Tampa, FL, and unlike our neighboring counties, the muni compost is done by a contractor and is not free. I believe it's about $25 per pickup truck load.

Due to the economy and my age and condition (severe hearing loss and back back) I have been looking into converting my ~6000sf back yard into a market gardening project, using 4'x8' raised beds (probably about a dozen beds.) My aim is to organically grow heirloom tomatoes, chilis, and mild peppers, and I was seriously considering the muni compost.

However, the volunteer in the gardening section at the county extension service was of the opinion that I couldn't say that my produce was organically grown if I use muni compost. How can I determine if I can use it in good conscience?

Hi,
I don't know the regulations governing growing organic produce, altho I know they're pretty complicated.

But for sure you're not growing organically if you're using muni compost - for the fact that you don't know *what* is in it. Could be herbicides, almost certainly is, since muni compost is the leaves swept from the street, and unless you could certify that no one in your town uses a herbicide (obviously impossible) you don't know what herbicides are in the compost. Not to mention the fertilizers that people use, not to mention motor oil, and anything else that ends up in the street.

good luck with your project.

You can't label your produce as organic if you use muni compost, I agree with ellenr in that respect.

To legally call your produce organic involves money and well, just money since all the other things can be faked.

If you don't care about the legal issues you can simply call your produce 'organically grown' or 'better than organic' or whatever you wish. There are at least 10 zillion ways around the federal laws in this regard.

What you can't do is say it is 'organic' since that word and that word alone are federal government regulated.

If it is any consolation most of those who are certified organic really aren't organic, they just know how to fake it. They regularly dump all manner of crap on their land and crops and just don't let anyone know about it.

While the term organic is regulated, it isn't all that well enforced.

You know.....the issues are never quite as cut and dried as we often assume :-) Believe it or not, there's a lot of municipal compost out there that is OMRI certified, so making blanket statements that you can't grow 'organic' when using these products is not entirely accurate. In fact, there's typically a lot of regulations involved with municipal composting facilities as well as testing of the finished product for heavy metals, pathogens and since the the clopyralid scare, for persistent pesticides as well. And because of the scale involved and the constant activity, municipal or commercial composting operations tend to produce a hotter, 'cleaner' (as in pesticide-, pathogen- and weed-free) compost than do most home composters. That's one of the biggest benefits of a thorough, temperature controlled composting operation - it pretty much neutralizes all the harmful stuff and the end result is....well, pretty much purely "organic" :-)

Florida tends to be rather far ahead of the curve when it comes to municipal composting and their composting processes are governed by a rather significant number of regulations and restrictions. Although I did not discover anything to address OMRI certification specifically, you should be able to use it without worry. Ask your local compost provider what types of testing procedures they have gone through and what the results of those test were.

I'm not going to get into the legalities of using the term 'organic' or 'organically grown' or ways to get around it but to be able to call your product 'organic' requires certification by one of the agencies authorized to apply such certification. I'm not sure where the 'money' factor comes in to play - typically organic certification only requires testing and verification of organically approved methods and materials (OMRI) over a specified period of time, usually 3-5 years.

You know.....the issues are never quite as cut and dried as we often assume :-) Believe it or not, there's a lot of municipal compost out there that is OMRI certified, so making blanket statements that you can't grow 'organic' when using these products is not entirely accurate.

While it would not surprise me if this were true I don't know of any muni compost that is OMRI certified. To me it seems a waste of taxpayer dollars to even attempt such a certification since 99.9% of the people using the compost could care less about OMRI certification. I'm not going to get into the legalities of using the term 'organic' or 'organically grown' or ways to get around it but to be able to call your product 'organic' requires certification by one of the agencies authorized to apply such certification.

How I wish there was some real meaning to the terms. The term 'organic' is federally regulated, but it's meaning is being continually cheapened by the large producers.

Things like 'better than organic' or 'grown organic' aren't regulated as far as I know. Only the specific term 'organic' is regulated.

Just go to the grocery store and look at the stuff for sale and one will see all manner of creative ways to get around the federal 'lock down' on the use of the word organic.

Natural, all natural, better than organic, holistic, etc are all used with no regulation whatsoever.

While it would not surprise me if this were true I don't know of any muni compost that is OMRI certified. To me it seems a waste of taxpayer dollars to even attempt such a certification since 99.9% of the people using the compost could care less about OMRI certification.

I'm not sure why it would be considered a waste of taxpayer dollars - as stated previously, most municipal compost goes through a pretty rigorous testing process anyway. An additional testing and certification by OMRI is not that big a deal, provided the stuff comes close to meeting the OMRI requirements. BTW, most municipal compost that meets organic requirements is marketed commercially - sold - to the end users. The municipality is not necessarily the entity making the compost - it is contracted out to private companies so rather than being a drain in taxpayer dollars, they are a money-making enterprise. And as to whether or not the public is aware of or concerned about such certification seems to depend a lot on where one is located. On the west coast, organically minded gardeners are very numerous. California, which has the highest percentage of certified organic farms, is especially organic-conscious, and most of the municipal and commercial compost produced there is certified organic. My own local municipal compost operation - the largest of such facilities in the country - also produces a certified organic compost that is made almost entirely of yard waste.

The point I was trying to make is that municipal compost should not be discounted as being inappropriate for organic growing simply because WE don't know what's in it. A) the composting process, especially on the scales we are talking about with municipal composting facilities, is more than adequate to remove the majority of any harmful substances; B) most are required to go through a rigorous testing procedure that ensures those substances are not present; and C) it does not even have to be 'certified organic' to be able to be used in organic production - it only has to meet NOP requirements and can be documented as such (the testing procedures).

justaguy2 posted:

"Just go to the grocery store and look at the stuff for sale and one will see all manner of creative ways to get around the federal 'lock down' on the use of the word organic.

Natural, all natural, better than organic, holistic, etc are all used with no regulation whatsoever. "

Regulation on the term "Natural" was changed last year. So, your statement is not entirely true.

I think this discussion (regulation of label terms) is much more nuanced that you are presenting it. While some folks might be surprised what is and is not allowed for various terms, saying there is "no regulation whatsoever" is not true.

Our municipal compost seems a bit nasty. Bits of plastic,junk etc. mixed in. I got no problem using on lawn and flowers but make my own for veggies. Just my personal preference.

Even using OMSI rated Organic compost is no guarantee of purity. I'm a little miffed as I paid a lot more for organic compost for my veggie garden beds from Nature's Needs which does carry a certification. I've found various bits of plastics, a foot of duct tape (pretty sure that's not organic!) and even a little fruit sticker - which admittedly did say "organic" on it. But is the sticker itself organic? lol Now I'm debating if I should just use the municipal compost or not to save myself some $$... Gah!