Sewer sludge -- crop fertilizer

Most people do not know that sewer sludge – anything flushed down their toilet or washed down their drain, enters into the making of their food through fertilizer. According to the Center for Food Safety, 

Beginning in the early 1990s, millions of tons of potentially toxic sewage sludge have been applied to millions of acres of America’s farmland as food crop fertilizer. Selling sewage sludge to farmers for use on cropland has been a favored government program for disposing of the unwanted byproducts from municipal wastewater treatment plants.

This fact – and its disgust factor – makes a good case for opting for organic foods. Organic foods at least require that fertilizer used to grow food comes from livestock instead.  Andrew McGuire of Washington State University explains that the sludge used in organic production is not so wonderful either:

 The USDA organic standards designate manure, whether from organic or non-organic livestock production, as an allowed “organic” fertilizer, presumably because it came from a living organism. This means that, in the U.S., organic farmers are permitted to use manure from non-organic feedlots, chicken houses, pig barns, and fish farms… Most of this manure comes from confined animal feeding operations, which are prohibited under organic standards…The manure is then used on many organic farms where it is often their main source of nitrogen. 

USDA guidance explains that only composted manure can be applied directly to crops.  Raw manure must be used, if at all, 90 to 120 days before crops are planted.   

This post was prepared by William Mitchell College of Law student Sara Stoltz Eken.