Portal:Toxic Sludge/Sludge Science

Sewage sludge is contaminated with toxins and it is hazardous. The thousands of viruses, bacteria, heavy metals, persistent chemicals, human and animal drugs, carcinogens, endocrine disruptors and everything else that goes down the drain and into sewage plants ends up in the mountain of sewage sludge that the industry renames Biosolids and us increasingly trying to pawn off as "organic" fertilizer and compost. Today half of all sewage sludge is dumped on agricultural land, contaminating it with whatever it might contain. A growing body of scientific surveys and studies document the hazards of sludge. Here are some of them:

• Dr. Steve Wing of the University of North Carolina released a study in March 2013 involving neighbors of land where sewage sludge had been dumped -- "living in rural and semi­rural areas within approximately one mile of sewage sludge land application sites in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia." The study found that "over half of respondents attributed physical symptoms to application events."

• The Targeted National Sewage Sludge Survey was published by the EPA 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--ALL--of the sludge samples EPA took around the USA.

• In 2008, Marie Kulick prepared an excellent overview titled Smart Guide on Sludge Use and Food Production for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

• The Environmental Working Group in 1998 issued two reports on sludge hazards:
  • Dumping Sewage Sludge On Organic Farms? Why USDA Should Just Say No, and
  • Routes of Exposure sewage sludge: EWG Research on Chemicals in sewage sludge.

Go to our Scientific Studies of Sewage Sludge article to find links to dozens of peer reviewed scientific studies in their entirety that examine and confirm the many hazards of sewage sludge.