HARRISBURG, P.A. (KYW Newsradio) — Pennsylvania will now monitor and regulate food processing waste that’s used as fertilizer on farms in an effort to allow its legitimate use while also cutting down on pollution.
Chester County State Rep. Paul Friel said food processing residual waste, or FPRs, can have a use in agriculture.
“It can be something as simple as leftover produce, something simple that has probably some beneficial uses to soil, to stuff that has been processed [like] the wastewater from a kill floor with some cleaning agents in it,” he said.
Friel said as neighboring states put in restrictions on FPRs, a loophole in Pennsylvania’s Solid Waste Management Act meant there were more regulations on manure use in agriculture than of FPRs. As a result, trucking companies would pay Pennsylvania farmers to take it, or worse.
“There were some trucking companies that bought little farms for the purpose of spraying this material. So they're really not doing productive agriculture. They're really just creating unlicensed landfills,” he said.
Unlike manure that’s spread a couple times a year, Friel also said FPRs were being sprayed year-round in Pennsylvania, contaminating wells, rivers, and streams.
The lawmaker said after a farm in Chester County became a potential dumping ground, he worked with legislators across the aisle and across Pennsylvania to come up with a plan that allows regulation without prohibiting legitimate use.
Those guardrails are now law after being included in the new state budget.
