Greenwashing 101, via an email from a pal and a fantastic source, Hugh Kaufman, (senior policy analyst with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response):
The Washington Post is saying that toxic sewage sludge is safe enough to put in your mouth. And… it isn’t. Here’s today’s article.
The sewage plant in the article is actually in the process of getting sued over this stuff. And yet they are in the Washington Post as a great example of a safe, natural fertilizer for farms and gardens, and the lawsuit is NOT mentioned. Pretty outrageous, eh?
Sludge contaminants include many hazardous chemicals that are found in sewage sludge. Hundreds of communities across the U.S. sell toxic sludge products that are typically renamed biosolids and sold or given away as “organic fertlizer” or “organic compost.”
Here’s a list of some chemicals and pathogens in sewage sludge.
Then there’s this:
Targeted National Sewage Sludge Survey, a 2009 EPA study, concluded that all sewage sludge contains toxic and hazardous materials, including large numbers of endocrine disruptors.
Targeted National Sewage Sludge Survey results are described in two EPA reports published in 2009. EPA found that dozens of hazardous materials, not regulated and not required to be tested for, have been documented in each and every one of the sludge samples EPA took around the USA. [1] Hundreds of communities across the U.S. sell sludge products that are renamed biosolids and sold or given away as “organic fertilizer.”
Here’s a list of what the EPA’s own testing found in it.
And here’s what’s actually regulated (class A is the same as class B but with tighter standards on fecal coliform):
Despite the U.S. EPA’s assurances of safety,[1], the safety requirements for Class B Biosolids are insufficient to ensure safety. Animals fed forage crops grown in soil fertilized with Class B Biosolids have died and humans working in the fields where Class B Biosolids were applied have been sickened.[2]
Sounds about as safe as the seafood and overall environment after the BP oil disaster, not to mention those “safe” nuclear reactors we are told to “believe” will hold up after major earthquakes.
TPC RSS Posts Feed
TPC Comments Feed
