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Toxic sludge is poison
Sewage sludge: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) euphemistically calls it “biosolids.” But what is it really? And why should you care?
Sewage sludge (sometimes greenwashed as “biosolids”) are the remnants from water treatment processes. Municipal sewage is treated to extract the clean water. The remaining concentrated muck is marketed as a fertilizer treatment, and 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.
Scientific evidence has confirmed that municipal sewage sludge contains hundreds of dangerous pathogens, “forever chemicals,” toxic heavy metals, flame-retardants, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, pharmaceutical drugs and other hazardous chemicals coming from residential drains, storm water runoff, hospitals, and industrial plants.
Most recently, scientists are finding that our food and groundwater is contaminated with PFAS “forever chemicals.” These chemicals are man-made, and used in everything from non-stick pans and carpet, to firefighting foams, and are routinely found in sewage sludge.
The EPA has underestimated the dangers of these widespread chemicals. It’s time to stop the use of sewage sludge!
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Your food and drinking water could be contaminated with PFAS “forever chemicals”, at levels that are hundreds of times higher than what is considered safe, but the EPA is too busy looking out for industry to care. Action Alert!
PFAS contamination threatens the integrity of our food supply and is upending the lives of farmers. This is the latest outrage in what is quickly becoming a national crisis in which PFAS “forever” chemicals, linked to a variety of diseases, are polluting our waterways and our food—and regulators have just admitted that these chemicals are more dangerous than previously thought. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seems determined to protect industry rather than enact meaningful standards to protect us from these dangerous chemicals. This has to stop.
Our food is contaminated with PFAS via the use of biosolids on farmland. Biosolids are a euphemism for sewage sludge, municipal sewage that has been processed to obtain clean water, leaving behind a concentrated sludge full of contaminants.
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About 20m acres of cropland in the United States may be contaminated from PFAS-tainted sewage sludge that has been used as fertilizer, a new report estimates.
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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.
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Publisher's Weekly describes Toxic Sludge Is Good For You as "a chilling analysis of the PR business...a cautionary reminder that much of the consumer and political world is created by for-hire mouthpieces in expensive neckties." Since its publication in late 1995, Toxic Sludge has already gone into its sixth printing amid rave reviews. It's been featured on ABC-TV's Good Morning America, National Public Radio's Marketplace, and in scores of other radio, TV and print stories.