Agricultural Waste and Pollution

Although at a national scale, the amount of waste produced by the agricultural industry is often not as great as from other sectors, farming is a highly varied industry which produces a bewildering array of natural and man-made wastes, each of which has a particular set of environmental, public health, and management issues associated with it. These include manures and slurries, crop residues, vegetative trimmings and other green wastes, pesticides, dead stock, silage effluent and wastes from the dairy industry, as well as more familiar forms of waste such as oils, plastics, paper, and card. Some of these waste streams are found in other sectors, but the nature of agricultural businesses means that they may have properties which stop them simply being treated in the same way as they would be in those other sectors (e.g., hazardous contamination). This chapter details the relevant waste streams, the issues associated with them, and current best practice in relation to management.