Much of what you flush down your toilet likely ends up being spread on
local farm fields as fertilizer for the food you eat. At face value, it
seems like a perfectly natural process. Historically, manure has been
a
preferred fertilizer for farmers worldwide. In the U.S. 60% of sewage
sludge is treated, dried and shipped out to the farm. Proponents claim
the sludge has only low levels of bacteria, but what about the chemicals
homeowners and industry dump into the wastewater system? Those toxins
don’t just disappear. When applied to the soil, they work their way into
the ground water, the air, and the plants we eat. Award winning
scientist, David Lewis, a microbiologist, was recently fired from the
Environmental Protection Agency for his criticism of the U.S.
Government’s sewage sludge policies. Lewis and likeminded opponents
question how the EPA, in 1992, determined that sewage sludge was too
toxic to continue dumping in the oceans, yet it’s perfectly legal to
apply the same stuff to food crops intended for human ingestion. The
EPA is now considering selling this same sludge under the label "organic
compost". Write a letter to the EPA, expressing your concerns:
/old_articles/foodsafety/sludge011504.cfm
