Recycling News

EXCREMENT HAPPENS
By Sharon Force

Local activist Sharon Force is a long-time member of the environmental group Bring Urban Recycling to Nashville Today (BURNT). She has researched this issue and is responsible for sounding the alarm in Nashville.

Nashville continues to landfill hundreds of thousands of tons of recyclables each year due to its ineffective recycling program. And now, with a new Metro Water & Sewer facility under construction, the city is moving in the direction of 'recycling' sludge as ‘fertilizer’ to be applied on grazing land, cropland, orchards, et cetera.

EPA researchers and whistleblowers knocked down for stance on sludge ‘recycling’

Not only does the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sanction land-application of this problematic, ever-growing refuse; it has been promoting this “least expensive” approach since the early 1970's. However, from the onset, voices within the agency itself have been raised in protest and alarm reporting that such practice is "illegal and inconsistent with the agency's congressional mandate to protect human health and the environment." In documenting a growing body of evidence linking disease, illness and death to land application of sludge, Dr. David Lewis, a top EPA scientist was discredited, his work suppressed and his job terminated. Hugh Kaufman, an EPA chief inspector, and author of the Superfund regulations was fired after whistleblowing — and then rehired through the intercession of Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA).

Weighing the beneficial and harmful material in sludge

When members of Bring Urban Recycling to Nashville Today (BURNT) and Recycling Advocates of Middle Tennessee (RAM) met with Ron Taylor, Chief Engineer at Metro Water & Sewer in early August, he readily admitted there is little beneficial material in sludge — only 1 - 3% — because the organic material is removed in the first stage of treatment. A new $117 million facility, under construction and due to come on line early fall 2007, will use the organic matter to generate energy via methane gas for de-watering the sludge. While he also showed data indicating the careful monitoring of ten chemicals as required by the EPA, there are literally thousands of chemicals in this potentially toxic stew, including industrial and medicinal waste, household cleansers, et cetera.

Better solutions

With so little to be gained — only 3% — and so much at risk, why move in this direction? To save $3 million/year in landfilling costs? Even Middlepoint landfill doesn't want it. How can sludge be so problematic that landfills don't want it but be fine for fertilizer on fields? Local environmentalists have been advocating an organic-separation approach to solid waste for more than 14 years; a front-end approach that not only would generate a truly beneficial organic compost for farming, but that would maximize recycling as well. Such an approach would reduce landfill costs by many millions of dollars more than through sludge diversion; and could potentially generate a conservative estimate of $40 million/year in sale of recyclables.

For more in-depth information, visit the websites below:

www.ijoeh.com/pfds/IJOEH_1104_Snyder.pdf
"The Dirty Work of Promoting 'Recycling' of America's Sewage Sludge" by Dr. Caroline Snyder; from the International Journal of Occupational Environmental Health 2005; 11:415-427

www.prwatch.org
A search site for the term 'sludge' will bring up many articles, including "Let Them Eat Sludge," "A Brief History of Slime," and "Secret Ingredients."

Learn about a better solution for Nashville:

www.jgpress.com/BCArticles/2000/020051.html
“San Francisco Takes Residential Organics Collection Full-Scale"