by Sean Mowbray on 11 January 2022

Excerpts:

"Aquatic ecosystems are not the only ones impacted by sewage. Sewage sludge (also known as biosolids), the sticky stuff leftover from the wastewater treatment process, is used worldwide as a fertilizer and as a means of recycling the nutrients that are so damaging to coastal waters. In 2019, the U.S. produced an estimated 4.75 million dry tons of sewage sludge, with just over half applied to agricultural land.

However, depending on treatment methods, sewage sludge can spread the same toxic cocktail oozing into coastal systems on to land. It can seep into soils, enter food chains and groundwater, and also run off into streams and estuaries. In 2019, a U.S. EPA report noted that 116 chemicals found in sewage sludge samples had levels of toxicity high enough to impact humans, while 134 had sufficiently toxic levels to impact the environment.

Microplastics are well-known ocean contaminants, but they also are contained in sewage sludge. Depending on the technology used, wastewater treatment plants can remove up to 99% of microplastics. But the remainder becomes concentrated in processed sludge. One estimate puts the minimum amount of microplastics spread on agricultural lands via sewage sludge at 26,156 tons per year in the European Union, and 21,249 tons annually in the United States. Globally, there may be more microplastics spread on land than are entering the oceans — but we don’t know for sure."

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The environmental geoscientists at the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CMESS) focused on a variety of parameters that contribute to plastic pollution in farmland soils. They calculated for different scenarios whether nano- and microplastic particles transport pollutants to groundwater resources. The result shows: they do not. ( © Audrey Desaulniers, Orcéine, Montreal)

Study shows that microplastics do not contribute to the mobility of organic pollutants in agricultural soils

In agriculture, large quantities of nano- and microplastics end up in the soil through compost, sewage sludge and the use of mulching foils. The plastic particles always carry various pollutants with them. However, they do not transport them into the groundwater, as is often assumed. Environmental geoscientists led by Thilo Hofmann have now determined that the plastic particles release the pollutants in the upper soil layers: they do not generally contaminate the groundwater, but have a negative effect on soil microbes and crops. The study by the University of Vienna appears in Nature Communications Earth & Environment.

Pollutants enter agricultural soils with plastic particles

Wastewater and rivers carry microplastics into the oceans. Wind distributes the particles to the remotest parts of the earth. However, agriculture itself plays a far greater role in plastic pollution of agricultural land: fertilizers such as compost manure or sewage sludge and the remains of agricultural mulching foils carry large quantities of plastic particles, so-called macro-, micro-, and nanoplastics, onto agricultural land. According to current estimates, for example, with every kilogram of sewage sludge, up to 300,000 plastic particles end up on agricultural soils - and with them pollutants. "Plastic always contains so-called additives. These additives ensure certain properties, durability or even the colour of a polymer. In addition, contaminants such as pesticides or pharmaceutical residues may become adsorbed to the plastic particles," explains Stephanie Castan, lead author of the study and PhD student at the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CMESS) at the University of Vienna.

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The study’s authors checked for 33 individual PFAS compounds and found each biosolid product contained between 14 and 20. Photograph: Creative Touch Imaging Ltd/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
Alarming toxic PFAS levels revealed in new report raise concerns that the chemicals are contaminating vegetables

Tom Perkins
Fri 28 May 2021 05.00 EDT

Sewage sludge that wastewater treatment districts across America package and sell as home fertilizer contain alarming levels of toxic PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals”, a new report has revealed.

Sludge, which is lightly treated and marketed as “biosolids”, is used by consumers to fertilize home gardens, and the PFAS levels raise concerns that the chemicals are contaminating vegetables and harming those who eat them.

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"The “Poison Papers” represent a vast trove of rediscovered chemical industry and regulatory agency documents and correspondence stretching back to the 1920s. Taken as a whole, the papers show that both industry and regulators understood the extraordinary toxicity of many chemical products and worked together to conceal this information from the public and the press. These papers will transform our understanding of the hazards posed by certain chemicals on the market and the fraudulence of some of the regulatory processes relied upon to protect human health and the environment." - from The Poison Papers

In a new book, epidemiologist Shanna Swan looks at the impact of environmental chemicals on human sexuality and reproductive systems.

by: Sharon Lerner
January 24 2021, 4:00 a.m.

SHANNA SWAN IS the senior author of a 2017 study that documented a dramatic drop in sperm counts in Western countries over the past half-century. That meta-analysis of 185 studies involving 42,935 men found that total sperm count fell 59 percent between 1973 and 2011. Swan, a reproductive epidemiologist, pointed to the role of environmental chemicals in that trend. Now she has written “Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race,” a book that ties industrial chemicals in everyday products to a wide range of changes taking place in recent years, including increasing numbers of babies born with smaller penises; higher rates of erectile dysfunction; declining fertility; eroding sex differences in some animal species; and potentially even behaviors that are thought of as gender-typical.

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TOPICS: Environment Public Health UCSF

By University of California - San Francisco March 21, 2021

Scientists at University of California San Francisco have detected 109 chemicals in a study of pregnant women, including 55 chemicals never before reported in people and 42 “mystery chemicals,” whose sources and uses are unknown.

The chemicals most likely come from consumer products or other industrial sources. They were found both in the blood of pregnant women, as well as their newborn children, suggesting they are traveling through the mother’s placenta.

The study was published on March 16, 2021, in Environmental Science & Technology.

“These chemicals have probably been in people for quite some time, but our technology is now helping us to identify more of them,” said Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at UCSF.

A former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientist, Woodruff directs the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE) and the Environmental Research and Translation for Health (EaRTH) Center, both at UCSF.

“It is alarming that we keep seeing certain chemicals travel from pregnant women to their children, which means these chemicals can be with us for generations,” she said.

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Magnitude of the PFAS, groundwater problem is unknown, the state said.
By Jennifer Bjorhus Star Tribune MARCH 18, 2021 — 3:17PM

Groundwater at the old Gofer Landfill in Martin County near the Iowa border contains PFAS levels more than 1,000 times the state drinking water safety standard. No nearby drinking water wells have been contaminated, the MPCA said.

Dozens of closed dumps are leaking high levels of the toxic man-made PFAS "forever chemicals" into groundwater around Minnesota, and pollution regulators want more money to determine the full scope of the problem.

Groundwater at one landfill, near the Iowa border, shows PFAS contamination more than 1,000 times Minnesota's drinking water health standard — worse than levels at the former Washington County landfill near where 3M Co. manufactured the chemicals.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) released the findings at a news conference Thursday, sounding an urgent request for more resources to address it.

The closed dumps it studied are a small fraction of the landfills operating across the state.

"They are in suburbs, greater Minnesota, regional centers and small rural communities," said MPCA Commissioner Laura Bishop. "They are next to our homes, our business and our farms."

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The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) published a February 2021 document titled:

Biosolids Biennial Report No. 8 (“Report”)

The Report addresses the reporting period 2018-2019.

Section 405(d)(2)(C) of the Clean Water Act requires that EPA conduct a biennial review of 40 C.F.R. Part 503. As part of this review process, EPA collects and reviews publically available information addressing:

Pollutants and biosolids that were newly identified during the literature search timeframe 2018-2019

Pollutants and biosolids that were previously identified in EPA national sewage sludge surveys conducted in 1988, 2001, and 2019 and/or in previous biennials reviews

The information collected addresses the occurrence, fate and transport of such pollutants in the environment. Also addressed are their effects on human health and ecological receptors.

Biosolids are often described as nutrient-rich organic substances derived from the treatment of domestic sewage in a wastewater treatment plant. They can constitute a beneficial resource because of they contain essential plant nutrients and organic material. As a result, they are often utilized/recycled as a fertilizer and soil amendment.

Section 405 of the Clean Water Act and the regulations (40 C.F.R. Part 503) require that sewage solids be treated to meet regulatory requirements if such biosolids are to be recycled. Some biosolids permits are issued through Clean Water Act National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permits.

EPA states that the Report identified 18 peer-reviewed articles referencing 116 new chemicals that occur in biosolids which included:

• 50 polychlorinated biphenyls
• 4 pesticides
• 19 flame retardants
• 8 perfluoroalkyl substances
• 3 antibiotics
• 1 Metal
• 2 inorganics
• 29 other organics

New data was also stated to have been identified for 48 chemicals previously indicated to be in biosolids. Concentration data for biosolids were found for 61 of the 116 new chemicals and for 34 chemicals identified in previous biennial reviews.

A copy of the Report can be downloaded here.

Abstract
In line with sustainable development principles and in order to combat climate change, which contributes to progressive soil depletion, various solutions are being sought to use treated sewage sludge as a soil amendment to improve soil quality and enrich arable soils with adequate amounts of biogenic compounds. This review article focuses on the effects of the agricultural use of biosolids on the environment. The article reviews the existing knowledge on selected emerging contaminants in treated sewage sludge and describes the impact of these pollutants on the environment and living organisms based on 183 publications selected from over 16,000 papers on related topics published over the last ten years. This study deals not only with chemical contaminants but also genetic determinants of resistance to these compounds. Current research has questioned the agricultural use of biosolids due to the presence of mutual interactions between antibiotics, heavy metals, the genetic determinants of resistance (antibiotic resistance genes - ARGs and heavy metal resistance genes - HMRGs) and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs as well as the risks associated with their transfer to the environment. This study emphasizes the need for more extensive legal regulations that account for other pollutants of environmental concern (PEC), particularly in countries where sewage sludge is applied in agriculture most extensively. Future research should focus on more effective methods of eliminating PEC from sewage sludge, especially from the sludge that is used to fertilize agricultural land, because even small amounts of these micropollutants can have serious implications for the health and life of humans and animals.

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