Sewage sludge that wastewater treatment districts across America package and sell as home fertilizer contain alarming levels of toxic PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals”, a new report has revealed. What remains in the treatment plants is a semi-solid mass of sludge that’s expensive for water treatment facilities to dispose of in landfills. In 2019, about 60% of sewage sludge produced by treatment facilities was spread on farmland and gardens, as well as schoolyards and lawns. “It’s not widely known that sewage sludge is spread [on gardens and agricultural land] as fertilizer, but that’s where a lot of our waste from water treatment plants ends up,” Miller said. The cows had to be killed, and the farmers found extremely high PFAS levels in their blood.

Source: The Guardian May 28, 2021 09:00 UTC