Where should the white powdery debris be disposed of

by Lisa

My pool guy was dumping the DE filters powdery white debris, dirt, on the grass. now, we have made that area a drought tolerant yard, & he just dumps it on the floor of the pool pump room. huge mess. he has to do this as often as 4x a month in the summer season. where should it be disposed of? what can I do to help in this cloudy scenario? thank you.

Hi Lisa. DE is normally safe to put on grass or gravel. Cleaning the grids 4x per month seems a bit excessive, even if the pool is a commercial pool. Backwashing is different than cleaning the grids. I can only assume you mean clean the grids because of the wording "he just dumps it on the floor of the pool pump room".

The best option would be to get a large garbage can and use it when he sprays the grids off. When backwashing, he would need to find the furthest place.

Robert

Thank you very much. It’s quite interesting, have you had something you never heard of, then soon thereafter it appears? Well, such is the case with DE. I had a friend over just yesterday, and the conversation was bug bites, and she just threw out Diatomaceous Earth is good for so many things! And I had never heard of that until I was reading about the pool issues! Isn’t that strange? I digress, thank you again- I will talk to my pool guy about it, I understand the DE with regards to pools has chlorine in it, so it may not be used for as much as it has potential to assist in.
Learn something every day! Enjoy!

Hi Lisa.

It's good that you found the cause. While doing your research on the benefits of DE, you'll find there are two kinds - pool grade and food grade. I take FGDE daily and also give it to my dog (3/4 tsp) each day as a flea repellent, along with a couple of squirts of essential oils sprayed on his butt. It's good for bugs as it's very abrasive and cuts through their exoskeleton which eventually dehydrates them. There are dozens of uses for it.

Pool DE is carcinogenic when it's still in its dry form. If your pool guy is spreading DE, make double sure it's FGDE and not pool grade.