“Biosolids” is the industry euphemism for treated sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants. Sewage sludge has been proven to contain “forever chemicals” and loads of other toxins, yet it is still being spread as fertilizer on farmland in Virginia. We’re a grassroots group in Albemarle County working to stop this practice and educate people about it.
Biosolids = Sewage Sludge.
Graphic by Waterkeepers Chesapeake
The Flawed Argument
There’s a lot of money to be made in the sewage sludge business. That’s why you’ll hear industry proponents always say, “PFAS are everywhere and in everything! You should worry about the PFAS in the dust in your house, not the PFAS in biosolids!”
But that PFAS in your house, and in you, and in everything else will eventually end up in a landfill or washed down the drain to wastewater treatment plants. PFAS-contaminated leachate from landfills is trucked to those same wastewater treatment plants. It all ends up concentrated in the sewage sludge (“biosolids”) that gets spread onto farms.
Saying that PFAS are everywhere and in everything is not a good argument for continuing to spread biosolids.
It’s a good argument for stopping.
