BREAKING: What's in the Sewage Sludge?

nonylphenols (4.00 / 2)

From Uncle Wiki

Nonylphenol and nony[l]phenol ethoxylates have been banned in the European Union as a hazard to human and environmental safety.

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by: count @ Thu Mar 04, 2010 at 15:58:08 PM UTC

I'm seeing all of this and wondering if (4.00 / 3)

living in this fancy modern world is such a good thing. Everyone using antibacterial soaps, fire retardents, etc. I can see the triclosan getting into the sewage system, I mean after all, if you wash your hands with soap containing it, of course it'll go directly into the sanitary sewer, and at the plants, it's not things like triclosan that they're trying to break down and remove.

But how did the fire retardents get into the sludge? Is it through clothes washing? That's the only thing I can think of. There are fire retardents in carpet, but I wouldn't think that there would be enough coming out through carpet cleaning to even be detectable. But clothing? Everyone does laundry.

BTW, if you see Malorganite marketed for fertilizer, that's sludge.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Thu Mar 04, 2010 at 17:11:29 PM UTC

fire retardants (4.00 / 2)

Sewage sludge from San Francisco's treatment plants is mixed with sludge from eight other counties at Synagro's processing facility, is the way I am interpreting what Jill has written. Who knows what is in sludge from the other counties?

A chemical might be called, or might be popularly known as, a fire retardant, but the same chemical could be used for other purposes and in other processes which could discharge it to a sewer system.

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by: count @ Thu Mar 04, 2010 at 18:56:10 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Hadn't thought of the chemical(s) being used for other purposes (4.00 / 2)

but that makes sense.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Fri Mar 05, 2010 at 03:05:21 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

AlterNet (4.00 / 2)

Somebody at AlterNet picked up this story.

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by: count @ Thu Mar 04, 2010 at 17:53:54 PM UTC

raw sludge vs. composted sludge (0.00 / 0)

Jill, much of your analysis is focused on contaminants found in raw sludge. The composition and contaminant characteristics of raw vs. composted sludge are very different. If you aren't already doing so, it might be beneficial to your readers to shift the focus of your analysis from raw to composted sludge, since that's what SFPUC is handing out.

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by: nrdes @ Thu Mar 04, 2010 at 20:17:06 PM UTC

? (4.00 / 2)

The CBS video concerns composted sludge received by someone at a high school.

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by: count @ Thu Mar 04, 2010 at 21:59:49 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

nope i'm focusing (4.00 / 2)

solely on composted sludge. This test was of the stuff handed out by SFPUC to gardeners.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Thu Mar 04, 2010 at 22:14:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Sewage sludge also contains (4.00 / 2)

heavy metals. No amount of composting will affect these. I saw this battle being waged more than a decade ago in NH when a company purporting to sell sludge as "organic" set about trying to convince farmers to spread it on their hayfields as close as 200' away from rivers. It took a hard push from organic farmers to get this turned around and prevent leaching into the waterways as well as long term heavy metal contamination of farm lands. Sludge is just all-around bad stuff.

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by: Farishtah @ Fri Mar 05, 2010 at 04:57:12 AM UTC