Sewerage Sludge in compost?

My town composts ground tree trimmings and manure from the horse stable with bull dozers. Then it is made available free to county residents. Recently they have started adding some sewerage sludge from our sewerage treatment plant. I have heard that is not a good thing because of all the wierd stuff people put down their drains. How dangerous is sewerage sludge? The state department of health tests the piles before people are allowed to use it, but I don't know what they test for. How bad do you think such a compost can be. Can it be used on veggies? or just ornamentals? or nothing?

You can ask the wwtp for a copy of test results that they do on the sludge - its public information.

Every wastewater treatement plant produces a different quality sludge.

In general, a small town with little or no industry is going to produce a cleaner sludge than a larger municipality with industry.

When you get a copy of the test results - the thing tolook for is the heavy metals... check the concentrations of lead, mercury, chromium, cadmium - commonly found in some sludge - but it may not be present at all. If the sludge is a good clean sludge, I would not hesitate to use compost made with it.

Finding a use for clean sludge is a great way for us to recycle our waste products. And sludge is an excellent source of nitrogen.

How you use it should be what works for your comfort level which should be determined by reviewing the test results.

Betty, you may want to read this article from the Organic Consumers Association before you apply sewage sludge to your garden:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/sludge101403.cfm

Although farmers in many countries have used sewage as a fertlizer for centuries, today's sewage has far more chemicals and other contaminants that the sewage prior to WWII. One key area of concern are the pharmaceutical residues in the sewage. We are seeing endocrine disruptions in many forms of wildlife as a result of humans peeing and pooping out the residual chemicals from the prescription drugs they take.

Are the pharmaceutical residues found in the effluent of the wastewater treatment and the sludge or is it just one or other?

From what I've read, it appears to be both. There is a large variance in the types of wastewater and sewage treatment programs around the country. There is also a wide variation in the residual effects of the various drugs and chemicals that people take.
The artificial sweetener Splenda is a hydrocarbon that is only one step away from DDT. It breaks down into DDE in the body the same way DDT does. Unfortunately there is a similar concern about pharma products given to livestock. We have a local winery that has recently offered the composted horse manure to the local county Master Composter program. A little digging revealed that the local farmers used to take their horse manure but are now refusing it because it started having an adverse effect on their crops when the stable changed to newer veterinary products. If you are just using it on decorative landscaping it may not be as much of an issue. I would be careful with any plant you intend to eat.

I'll try to find the article on that compared some of the waste water programs and results (I'm a little behind in organizing my bookmarked pages).

Thanks both garden_maiden and JoePyeWeed. I will check this out with our local Solid Waste Department and see what they think. Many local organic gardeners have quit using county made compost. I will try to learn what their testing has shown.
This town is well cared for medically and probably takes more than the usual number of drugs. I had no idea that Splenda was so suspiciously close to DDT-- not that I have ever used Splenda or any artificial sweetener.

I would like to help use up the sludge, but not unless it is safe!

This message was edited Aug 30, 2006 8:31 AM

When we modern humans clean up our inner ecology, sewage will be safe again.

Here are some articles on the toxicity issues related to Splenda (sucralose) and Nutrasweet (aspartame):
http://www.rense.com/general65/splend.htm
http://www.mercola.com/2000/dec/3/sucralose_dangers.htm
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/


If you need to use an alternative sweetener, try growing a stevia plant. Stevia has been eaten for hundreds of years.

Its my understanding that real science and data regarding the pharamceuticals in our waste stream is still being collected and analyzed... it is pretty easy to understand that excess pharm. products are in the raw waste stream. But it is scientifically unknown at this time, what products remain (the chemicals, hormones et al,) after they have been processed by the various types of wastewater treatment. That type of information is still under scrutiny with no formative conclusions yet.... time will tell.

Mermaid, keep fighting that good fight. I still am. People just don't want to believe how bad artificial sweeteners are for them. They'd rather ingest formaldehyde than gain weight -- and won't even hear it will MAKE them gain weight. I suffered health problems from a period of choosing diet soda that I probably never will recover from entirely. Nothing debilitating in the long run, but "if I'd known then what I know now..."

Stevia, produced by nature, or aspartame, produced by industry... hmmm... let me think...

.

This message was edited Aug 30, 2006 10:58 AM

This message was edited Aug 30, 2006 12:19 PM

I wrote a two-paragraph reply but I'm erasing it. This is a gardening website. I'll just say I have reason to disagree, but I'd still trust you with my garden on composting questions, sofer.

Send it Dmail I would like to see your perspective. I'll send mine to Dmail.

So is this secret discussion something that could be posted as a thread under the HomeTalk Healthy Living forum?

Yeah, I am curious too, you get us going and leave us hanging like that....

Aww, gee whiz, just when it started getting good.... nuts.

This is a gardening website, like you said brigidlily, and that is kind of all-encompassing, too. Our personal health, the earth's, animals.... Obviously, soil is the essence of our planet ( and water..)
What we do with / for / to it is of the utmost importance... personally, I hope you guys can do the impossible, which is answer the original question, how dangerous is sewer sludge?
It's such a broad question, and effects us all so profoundly, not just my little suburban flower bed.

I sincerely hope you guys can stay cool, and help all of us understand this better! I also hope all my crabgrass dies while I'm on vacation, but I'll be thinking a lot about this while I'm away. I will miss my computer...and you dave's garden people.... I think I'm gonna cry... ssnnfff

OK I am not the brain trust those 2 are but my basic feeling is this...if we do not use it, where does it go?

Not In My Backyard - not a viable answer....we all live downstream...sooner or later this will affect you whether its from accumulation somewhere else and affects watershed or if its dispersed in low percentage randomly around your house, that just seems to me like a more optimal solution...personally if I had access to it I would feed it to my worms first in my outdoor "bin" and then I would use it.

Nature has its own balancing act and I trust mother earth's processes more then man's. Just my 2 cents.

You are so right MQN. It does not leave the planet. We need to use what we know by the best of our knowledge is safe or decide not to use it and see it go to soils that grow our wheat, corn etc. That is the truth we recycle what we eat just like cows, rabbits etc. The problem is that we also use chemicals that are dumped into the same sink etc. I have used Millorganite fertilizer (a human waste product) often and have deciced to do this because the alternative is fertilizer salts. I choose the lesser of the two evils. Plus it works to the advantage of the plant, assuming not contaminated with heavy metals etc.
Brigidlilly and I simply have differences of opinions and thought we shoud not discuss it here. All is well and I would use any human waste collected in areas that don't share water systems with heavy industry. I believe Millorganite's reputation lies with this knowledge.

Perhaps a better question might be more like a poll, would you use compost that has been mixed with sewage sludge...

My answer is yes, provided I reviewed the sludge testing report and the heavy metal components were low to non-exisitant.

My answer is no, if I reviewed the sludge testing report and the heavy metal content was high.

See my vote is if my worms can survive then its OK if it killed my worms it is toxic waste. In an atrium back home they introduced ladybugs to attack the scale infestation people got upset (personal paradigms) so they used a systemic for the scale no one in my industry would go into that building (any part of that hi-rise) because of the systemic getting breathed out by the plant. But people can go into the atrium without being bothered by those outragiously pesky frightening lady bugs. Fear of chemicals or bugs is still a fear and fear comes from lack of knowledge, or if it has to do with global warming fear comes from knowledge....

This is a fascinating discussion. I used to use milorganite years ago, but haven't seen it for sale in a long time. Probably someone would order it for me thought. There are not just salts, but heavy metals in many commercial fertilizers as well. But where do they go after they are used? Into our water which eventually flows to the ocean etc. etc.
So there is no good answer on heavy metals except to quit using them everywhere. I believe the US and EU have been working on those problems for a long time and our exposure to heavy metals from food and industry is abating.
On the other hand, we need more research on hormones, anti-depressants, statin drugs and other stuff people take a lot of. We need to find out how long those chemicals last in the environment after they have passed through a human and a waste treatment plant. It shouldn't be too difficult to do such a study. Maybe the research foundations are afraid to find out. It would be very inconvenient if we found out that one of these drugs lasted for many years.
I can tell you that the county here in Los Alamos can't create enough compost to satisfy the demand and they work at it continually. It really works
in the garden and I guess, I have no problem with using it on ornamentals. But who wants to keep two piles of compost? I don't know. I have to think about it.
Betty

The studies that you mentioned are being done as we speak - in lots of places all over the country/world...

I was just contemplating going to a seminar that updates people in the wastewater industry about the status of the research.

I was thinking that perhaps the sewage sludge could be used to generate electicity or heat much like the methane digesters used by dairy farms:

http://www.riverdeep.net/current/2002/03/032502t_cowpower.jhtml
http://www.strausmilk.com/index.php?mod=chroniclemethane

So I googled around to see if there were some articles about human sewage sludge being used to generate power. I came across an interesting set of articles from the Perelandra Nature Research Center that I thought y'all might find thougth provoking.

I'm posting the solution article first:
http://www.perelandra-ltd.com/Sewge_3B_W526.cfm

The other parts to this article are a bit disturbing, but worth reading. I'm inspired to take action after reading these:
http://www.perelandra-ltd.com/Sewage_3A_W288.cfm
http://www.perelandra-ltd.com/Sewage_3C_W527.cfm

I can remember spending childhood summers with my Oma in an agricultural state in Germany. They had a composting toilet until the sewer was extended to their part of town in 1979 (this was the Soviet side of Germany, so technology was very different from the west). A truck would come an drain the toilet tank from time to time. The sludge was then sprayed on the fields. No one got sick from these field applications of sludge back then. It would be great to make this soil resource safe again. Looks like I've got a new project to gather more info and to find out which of my government representatives to best (most effectively ) pester with requests/demands for improved and safe sewage treatment technologies that are environmentally friendly.

A good place to start to learn more about wastewater.

http://www.wef.org

Thanks joepyeweed. I'll read throught that site.

Thanks both Joe and garden_mermaid for fascinating info about sewerage sludge. I will start with the county solid waste management team. It seems that this is a complex issure, that really doesn't have to be. We are just putting all the waste together without much thought about the chemical soup we are creating. I am eager to see the research on pharmaceuticals on sludge and waste water. We water parks and our golf course with the waste water now. Apparently it is not considered fit for vegetable gardens though.
I would like to do the right thing, but maybe the right thing is to start a local discussion on the issue.

Some other lingo in the wastewater industry that might those doing some web searching.

"compounds of emerging concern"
"endocrine disrupting chemicals"

Thanks again. Using the "right" term in a seach definitely helps the search.
Are there other websites on this issue that you recommend? No sense reinventing the wheel,so to speak.

The best resource for people is their local wastewater treatment plant. Get to know your local WWTP operators. They are educated / licensed and informed about local issues in water quality.

I think it would be great if every person understand where the water goes after their toilet flushes and how it is treated and monitored. I think every person should also know where their drinking water comes from, and how it is treated and monitored.

When we educate ourselves about these issues its much easier to make changes on how we can make them better.

I agree with joepyeweed entirely. We CAN'T have perfect but we can try to get as near to it as we can. If heavy metals aren't present (or are VERY minor) I'd use it.

One of the nice things about Beaumont (my home town and where I work) is that the wastewater facility uses a series of ponds to filter the water rather than chemical means. And it's some of the best water around. Maybe getting active on a municipal level would be a good idea. When a new facility has to be built, educate the city fathers about alternatives, and use Beaumont as an example. It really works.

(Just got back on the net here at work, so my first chance to reply, and yes, soferdig and I are DG buds with a difference of opinion on some things, which is what gives the world dimension.)

We've already been to one of our county wastewater treatment plants for a tour. While I agree that the operators are educated, licensed and informed on local water quality issues, I don't take everything they tell me at face value. I do make it a point not to put the WWTP operators on the spot since they are just doing their jobs. I want to get to the persons making the decisions about the treatments the staff is asked to use.

What the government agencies consider safe/healthy and what I and many consumer groups consider safe/healthy are frequently in dissagreement. Case in point - flouridation of water. Our government says is safe and healthy, most of the countries of the EU, New Zealand and many scientists at the EPA say it is toxic. When I read articles and reports that say that "studies" indicate something is safe, I generally seek out a copy of the actual study to see if I come to the same conclusion that was published and to see who funded the study to check of potential conflicts of interest.

Residents of my city get their water from 4 separate municipal sources, depending on the part of town. We have filters on all our showers and faucets. The chloramine levels in my part of town are so high that straight tap water smells like a bottle of clorox and it reddens and burns my skin. It hasn't been that good for my garden either. We installed a dechlorinator on the garden hose last week. The difference in only one week has been truly amazing.

What does your local water department say about the smell of your water?

Has someone from the water department been to your house to smell and sample the water coming out of your tap?

Is it common or customary for water departments to come over and test the water?

Forgot to answer you first question - the SFPUC told me they are within approved limits. Do you know of an independent lab that tests tap water without charging an arm and a leg? It might help the dialogue.


This message was edited Aug 31, 2006 6:54 PM

I really appreciate this discussion. Apparently our community drinking water, which we get reports on frequently, is almost as good as it gets. I suspect the chief reason we get these reports is that we live in the same town as the nation's first nuclear weapons lab and traces of all kinds of wierd chemicals used in research here are slowly percolating down toward the water table. They are detected in test wells but not in our community wells. Chemicals such as perchlorate and tritium. Standards of these chemicals are new and untested. How much perchlorate harms a human? Experts don't really have much of an idea. Same on tritium which is actually radioactive. But these chemicals are not yet in our water supply, either. For now I will consider it quite pristine. That may not be true in the future.
On the other hand, I have no idea what is in our sewerage sludge. My experience is that the county and state follow pretty high standards where this stuff is concerned, but I would like to find out if this is true. I will definitely talk to the waste management folk and see what they have to say. My impression is that they are under very tight scrutiny by the state because of all the possible ugly stuff that could turn up in our waste.
Anyhow, I believe you guys are right that it is time to cultivate a respectful relationship with these people.
We certainly have to do something with our sludge. Throwing it in the ocean seems like a really bad idea. I would like to use it, but I certainly don't want mercury and cadmium in my vegetable garden. I have to decide if it is okay for growing flowers and shrubs. I certainly don't know enough to answer that question right now. I certainly appreciate all the fresh info and suggestions on the subject.

Actually having an independant lab would probably only aggrevate the situation rather than help it. I would use an independant lab only after the water supply refuses to address my concerns.

It is customary for water supplies to address customers concerns. They may not test your water - but if you have a taste and odor problem that is unusual for the water supply - they should be informed about it and they MAY be able to address the problem. I would talk to the water department BEFORE you hire an independant lab.

However if you live in an area with crud for water and everyone has the same problem - then the water supply may be thick skinned....

We started a preliminary investigation about two months ago when I noticed the stong chlorine smell from the garden hose. A lot of people in the garden thought that chloramine will evaporate off like regular chlorine and were filling a water bucket each night to use for watering the following day. Unfortunately chloramine can't be evaporated or boiled off. A team from the garden visited the county water treatment plant, which uses ozone as the primary treatment with "only a minor amount of chloramine". The tap water at the county plant is not as bad as at my home. Further investigation shows that Sunnyvale has four different water sources. We are on the side of town supplied by the San Francisco PUC rather than the county.

I would like to have some independent water tests to help me determine if we need to change to a different type of water filter in the house as well as providing some info for a dialogue with the waste water plants when the appropriate time comes. We don't expect any changes at the water district to happen quickly, if they happen at all. The SFPUC is already on the defensive over the issues related to the Hetch Hetchy dam in Yosemite.

There are really two topics that we are working on here:
1) quality of water
2) quality of sewage sludge/biosolids treatement.

My plan is to learn about the processes in use in my area, why these processes were selected and who makes the decision on the processes used. I also want to learn about alternative treatments and pros & cons of each. I'll check to see if the local members of Ecology Action want to get involved.

Obviously these are not questions to be answered in a few days. If we discover anything interesting, or actions that can be taken, I'll report back.

Its my experience that the operators at the plants would love to put out highest quality product - but their constraints are budget... and we as consumers need to decide how much money are we willing to pay for our sewer and water bill.

We (me & mermaid) might be willing to pay twice for sewer and water to ensure that its treatment far exceeds the minimum standards - however many people in the community are only willing to pay for that which is deemed acceptable....

I will also talk to my local officials. Our water tastes and smells wonderful but you can't taste or smell the tiny amount of perchlorate ( rocket fuel). But I really want to talk to see tests on sewerage sludge. Don't worry. There is no need for an independent lab here. The county has performed a huge number of tests on all of this stuff, but I don't remember seeing any reports at all on the sludge.

The question as to the saftey of using sewer sludge in the garden came up last night in my Master Gardening class. We were told that it would be okay in an ornamental garden but to avoid using it on the vegetables.

carol

carol, whether it is safe or not has a lot to do with where you are getting it from and how it was processed. You may want to read the articles from the Perelandra site in my post above, and then do some research as to where your intended sludge is coming from and how it was treated.

My grandparents in Europe had a composting toilet until the late 1970's. The sludge was commonly used to fertilize the fields. It would be applied, turned under, and then the first crop had to be something that did not grow in the ground (eg, root vegetables). There were no health issues with this, but then it was "family sludge", so you knew the health of the persons contributing to the fertilizer pile.

It is clear that using human sludge should be a priority throughout the world. I still have not investigated my town's sludge treatment and the analysis of the final product. I do know that they do not allow it to be collected until the State Dept. of Health approves. For now, I will just use it on ornamentals, but eventually, I will look into using it in my garden. But first, I will look at the analysis. Thanks justfurkids, and gm for your input to this very important debate.