The article highlights the overlooked threat posed by spreading contaminated sewage sludge on farmland. While human waste can enrich soil with nutrients, regulatory failures have led to widespread contamination with harmful substances like PFOA and microplastics. Many tanks offload untreated waste, including leachate from landfills, creating health risks for ecosystems and people. Insufficient testing and enforcement exacerbates this issue, making it an underestimated, yet significant threat, urging a reevaluation of current practices around sewage management and nutrient recycling.
Whistleblowers from the Environment Agency report that these loads are scarcely tested. The testing that does occur is often for chemicals that may damage the sewage equipment, rather than those that may poison people and ecosystems.
Many of these tankers are delivering leachate from landfill sites, containing a dense cocktail of pollutants, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (Pfas, or forever chemicals), other persistent organic compounds, pharmaceuticals and a thick sludge of microplastics.
In principle, we should return human waste to farmland, as it is rich in nutrients. But thanks to years of regulatory failure, this waste in many countries is now contaminated with a vast range of toxins.
The fees appear to create an incentive for water companies to turn a blind eye.
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