Natural Life Magazine
Heinz and Del Monte both say none of their products are grown with sludge
Waste treated at a sewage plant may be spread on a farmer's field near you. Unfortunately, it may contain nasty surprises that could end up on your dinner plate. They rename the waste as fertilizer and spread it on farmers’ fields. The code word for this practice is “beneficial use”.
Many times land disposal just relocates pathogens rather than disposing of them
Sewage sludge is widely used as a soil amendment by agri-business. Sludge is the mud-like material that remains after treatment of the wastes that flow into local sewage treatment plants. However, sewage treatment plants also inevitably receive commercial and household toxic wastes. EPA on sewage sludge.
PR Campaign to re-classify sludge from a hazardous material to beneficial “bio-solids”
This amazing process is documented in the book, Toxic Sludge is Good for You. It says, “Our investigation into the PR campaign for ‘beneficial use’ of sewage sludge revealed a murky tangle of corporate and government bureaucracies, conflicts of interest, and a cover-up of massive hazards to the environment and human health.”
An advocate of waste treatment reform, states that the move to land application:
“...the menace of toxic and otherwise non-life-compatible substances that can be found in sludge so greatly outweigh the potential nutrient benefit as to make that potential benefit an irrelevance...The sheer number of dangers associated with treating sludge as if it were a fertilizer is so great, so various, and so serious that it would take thousands of professionals to divide up and respond to the categories of problems that will arise from this practice.”
Elk Rapids, MI 49629
