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You may not realize it but some foods you eat may have been grown in soil containing toxic sewage wastes. Labeling is not required. In 2019, about 60 percent of sewage sludge from 16,000 wastewater processing facilities in more than 160 U.S. cities has been spread on our soils — farmland and gardens, as well as schoolyards and lawns.
In the spring of 2017, a European Union working group of environmentalists, academics and lobbyists was having a technical discussion on green farming practices when a map appeared on an overhead screen. In an instant, the room froze. A farm lobbyist objected. Officials murmured their disapproval.
For more than 20 years, the eastern Michigan town of Lapeer sent leftover sludge from its sewage treatment plant to area farms, supplying them with high-quality, free fertilizer while avoiding the expense of disposal elsewhere.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection tested the sludge, solid waste that remains after the treatment of domestic and industrial water, for the presence of three “forever chemicals”: PFOA, PFOS, and PFBS. Of 44 samples taken from Maine farms and other facilities that distribute compost made from the sludge, all contained at least one of the PFAS chemicals.
Microplastics are particles smaller than five millimetres. About 800,000 to 2.5 million tonnes of these tiny pieces of plastic are estimated to end up in oceans each year, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. However, not much is known about the damage these particles cause to landscapes as they make their way to the sea.
Sewage sludge: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) euphemistically calls it “biosolids.” But what is it really? And why should you care?
As an article from In These Times explains, sewage sludge is:
. . . whatever goes into the sewer system and emerges as solids from municipal wastewater treatment plants. Sludge can be (its exact composition varies and is not knowable) any of the 80,000 synthetic chemicals used by industry; new chemicals created from combining two or more of those 80,000; bacteria and viruses; hospital waste; runoff from roads; pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter drugs; detergents and chemicals that are put down drains in residences; and, of course, urine and feces flushed down toilets.
This toxic stew is sold to farmers who use it to fertilize food crops—a fact most consumers don’t know, because food producers and retailers aren’t required to tell you.
The documentary, “Crapshoot: The Gamble with Our Wastes,” produced by the National Film Board of Canada in 2003, investigates an important aspect of human life you likely give little consideration: sewage. Do you know what happens to the water and other items after you flush the toilet or run water down the drain?
Toxic oil drilling wastewater from companies like Chevron is being used to grow some food in California - food that is sold in grocery stores across the country!
The wastewater contains chemicals used in fossil fuel extraction, including some that are linked to cancer and reproductive harm, such as ethylbenzene and toluene.
This practice threatens the safety of our children and the adults who eat this food, the farm workers who irrigate and pick the crops, and the environment.
Popular food companies that market their brands as “healthy” are involved in this practice, including The Wonderful Company, known for brands such as POM Wonderful, Wonderful Pistachios, and Halos mandarins, and Grimmway Farms, a major U.S. carrot producer, including “Bunny-Luv” Carrots”
The "land application" of sewage sludge has been promoted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) since 1993 as the preferred method for the disposal of this by-product of municipal wastewater treatment. Millions of tons of hazardous sewage sludge have subsequently been spread on farmland and public parks in the United States. No matter how it is processed or how slick it is marketed as a fertilizer or soil amendment, putting sewage sludge on land is a health and environmental disaster.
SNOQUALMIE, Wash.—Out in the Snoqualmie forests of eastern King County, on the west side of the Cascades, the ground is black and mucky. It's an unnatural scene with a toilet-bowl stench.
And it comes from tons upon tons— about 120,000 tons a year—of sewage sludge that King County, home of Seattle and more than 2 million people, disposes of annually in these forests and on farms and rangelands of central and eastern Washington.
This sludge, known euphemistically as "biosolids," consists of semi-liquid waste obtained from the processing of municipal sewage. The goal of this process is to obtain clean water to release into the environment, and thus, the cleaner the water, the more toxins and contaminants are retained in the sludge. This sludge used to be dumped into the ocean, but because of its toxicity this process is banned. Instead we now spread it in our forests and on our agricultural lands.
The spreading of this sludge carries considerable risk and should be stopped. As scientists, we are increasingly concerned with this reckless practice.
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