| Recall that activists have interfered with San Francisco's sewage sludge compost give-away program that was giving free "organic compost" to city residents until the program was ended this past March. Since then, the city made good on its promise to release test results showing which contaminants - if any - were found in the sludge compost, and at what concentrations. Shortly after they released their results, the newly-formed Food Rights Network (FRN) released its own data, showing that SF's sludge compost DID have some nasty stuff in it - namely, PBDEs, nonylphenols, and triclosan. (San Francisco's tests didn't test for those things.) When FRN released its test results and the story was picked up by CBS news, it was quite embarrassing for San Francisco.
Now, apparently, it's San Francisco's turn at bat. So what are they doing? PR, of course. They have a new jingle to remind people what goes down the toilet and what doesn't so that the resulting sewage sludge is clean and can be used as a fertilizer. "When it comes to your toilet: Remember 3 Ps - Poop, Paper and Pee - Give it to Me!" Catchy, huh?
Here's the thing... it's not the condoms and cotton swabs going down the toilet that are really the problem, when it comes to using sewage sludge as fertilizer. It's the industrial waste, hospital waste, and even household waste - including the various chemicals that humans excrete. For example, check out this nice list of pharmaceuticals frequently found in sewage sludge. A few of them can be traced to use in livestock, but most are human drugs. Sometimes, pharmaceuticals even make their way all the way into drinking water. I've spent the last week reading countless studies about how pharmaceuticals biodegrade and what happens to them in the environment. Quite often, drugs go right through humans and come out the other end. So do an awful lot of other chemicals. If you want data and numbers check out this CDC report. They measure human exposure to chemicals by what they find in our urine.
At any rate, I find this sewage jingle so entertaining, I'll mail a book about sustainable food (winner's choice of several - I'll give you a list of what I've got) to whoever can come up with the best jingle about using sewage sludge as fertilizer for food crops. If you can write a jingle, paste it in the comments here. I'll post a diary with all of the entries a week from today and let people vote on the winner. Multiple entries are allowed - the more, the better.
Full disclosure: I am being paid to write about sewage sludge by the Center for Media & Democracy. However, this contest is my own idea and my own work, independent of the work I am being paid to do. |
