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Would the accounting use of the term sludge be relevant here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.95.151.196 ( talk) 11:42, 29 January 2007 I think you should include pictures showing class A and B sludge. It will give the readers a better understanding of what those are. There should also be more information under the Classes of Sewage Sludge heading.

Biosolids is term used to fool the public and farmers. The wastewater industry does not want anyone searching for the early history of sludge studies which show there is no current process to kill pathogens. Composting dissicates bacteria until mositure is again present to revive them. Salmonella and E. coli are known to survive on pasture land for over 70 weeks. While chemical may not have a harmful effect on animals, they may have a harmful effect on the first and second generations. The scientific studies did not consider infection of animals to be a problem. Spreading Sewage Sludge on U.S. Fields, Hidden Cause of Food Safety Problems http://hartkeisonline.com/2009/08/21/spreading-sewage-sludge-on-us-fields-hidden-cause-of-food-safety-problems/ Jim Bynum ( talk) 18:48, 22 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Biosolids are the end product from the treatment of wastewater using the activated sludge process. That is sludges that meet criteria set under EPA guidelines (CR 503 in the U.S.A) relating to pathogen content and the presence of volatile solids. The activated sludge process(Ardern and Lockett 1914), that creates WAS for secondary treatment was never designed for pathogen elimination - only rapid reduction in the BOD of domestic wastewater. Yet anyone can witness the enourmous expense most wastewater treatment authorities will deliver in the never ending goal to alleviate public concerns regarding pathogen levels in biosolids. There are many types of sludge. There is only one type of biosolid. There are thousands of articles not just by scientists but primarily independent engineers regarding ever improving methodologies for treating secondary sludges that are often trialled and implemented to meet the criteria to be termed 'Biosolids' in a faster and less expensive manner. Consult the journals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.144.9.73 ( talk) 04:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC) reply

This article is a one-sided affair with virtually no sourcing and an absurd, bolded screamer to go to a one-sided website for info. Compare to biosolids. Merge or cleanup? Mdbrownmsw 18:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC) reply

I could cite thousands of independent references for lab, pilot, and full scale work that have gone into alleviating the misguided notions of citizens like Jim Bynum. Biosolids ARE NOT waste sludge. How many times do you need to be told. This isn't Wikipedia, it must be Dickheadpedia. Perhaps Jim would like to take a trip back to early 19th century London and then see how many ridiculous conspiracy thoeries he could bring forth from the aether when he is standing knee deep in his own turds. Did someone throw this guy in a grit chamber or something? Dissent is healthy and essential, but alas so is intelligence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.144.9.74 ( talk) 03:38, 30 July 2010 (UTC) reply

Congratulations to all who have managed to completely disregard the work of many scientists and engineers like myself who spend their lives studying and implementing procedures for the conversion of SLUDGE into BIOSOLIDS. As for the 'Alliegence against sludge" - here is a solution - go back to using chamber pots and you can recyle your faecal material in your own yard for your own re-use. Would you like to ban anti-biotics also or the emerging field of phage therapy. Perhaps not until after you have had that Hepatitis infection cleaned up. Although you can try crystal therapy, or homeopathy, raki, or even believing in tooth fairies - what do you think? Do something positive with your life instead of critising those who spend their lives ensuring your health is protected. Take a basic look at a human being - do you think all people are out to deceive and manipulate. I would say the people of the "Alliance" are poor misguided individuals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.144.9.74 ( talk) 03:16, 11 November 2010 (UTC) reply

(Copied from biosolids talk) Not a bad idea. I would rename sewage sludge treatment to just sewage sludge then merge in sludge and make sludge a disamb to include industrial sludge, water treatment sludge, etc. I would leave biosolids as a separate article due to the political and social aspects it has that are not shared by sludges that are not distributed as CFR 503 biosolids. --Justanother 04:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

it is still there!-- Stone ( talk) 21:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC) reply

Why is a sludge hammer called so? -- 1sneakers6 ( talk) 06:43, 17 October 2008 (UTC) reply

Do you mean sledge hammer or are you asking about this waste treatment product? -- Clay Collier ( talk) 07:23, 17 October 2008 (UTC) reply

haha! Yup, I just got the words mixed up. Thanks! -- 1sneakers6 ( talk) 11:04, 25 December 2008 (UTC) reply

The lead sentence of biosolids says it's another word for sludge. Can we merge? ike9898 ( talk) 15:34, 28 July 2009 (UTC) reply

• I think the two should be merged. There should be no question in the minds of readers that biosolids is the greenwashing term for sewage sludge. Karen Feridun, United Sludge-Free Alliance —Preceding unsigned comment added by 260 West ( talk • contribs) 17:21, 1 August 2009 (UTC) reply

• Support. Both articles refer to the same substance. Katana0182 ( talk) 01:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Ok, I think enough time has passed without any objections to a merge being raised. I'll try to work on this later, but if you are interested and motivated to work on this merge, be my guest. ike9898 ( talk) 17:49, 16 August 2009 (UTC) reply

No, no no!!! Do not do this. "Biosolids" are a special class of sludge!!! Sludges are present in various forms in the sewage treatment process. The end result may be a sludge that has recently been called "biosolids". However sludges arise in all sorts of other industries, whereas biosolids arise in only one! For a start, "biosolids" are always biological, whereas "sludge" often is not biotic at all!
If you want to have "biosolids" as a separate sub-section (within a section on sewage sludges), then I would support it. Remember, the article title says it is about "sludge" in general.
—DIV ( 128.250.247.158 ( talk) 01:49, 21 August 2009 (UTC)) reply

The biosolid term is commonly accepted to be a term of 'art' used to depict sewage sludge as something less toxic than it is. It is not acceptable to dispose of on agricultural fields, unless the toxics are removed. Even if biosolids are a special class, that's not enough reason to keep it as a separate article, they should be merged, and biosolids redirect to sewage sludge. I agree that there are multiple classes of sludge, so there may be a case for sewage sludge being an article distinct from sludge, with sludge being the disambiguation page including slag (leftovers from steel production), coal sludge (leftovers from coal combustion) Watchpup ( talk) 17:24, 5 October 2009 (UTC) reply

I can add the argument that yes biosolids are sludge but it is usually after treatment. i have talked to someone that workes at one of the sewage treatment plants and they refer it as sludge until it is ready to be sold and used on farms. The main different i can think of between biosolids and sludge in a sewage plant is the addition of lime. They add lime to the sludge they remove so that it is basically nutrients. this is then sold as biosolids —Preceding unsigned comment added by Griffj91 ( talk • contribs) 17:49, 11 October 2009 (UTC) reply

Wastewater sludge is an unclassified material. This could be waste activated sludge (WAS), primary sludge, etc. Biosolids material is created when wastewater undergoes a treatment process that changes the characteristics of the material into a new product. One required phase is pathogen reduction (PR). Optionally, vector-attraction reduction (VAR) can also be attained with appropriate treatment. Consider this: if a facility brings in milk and outputs yogurt (or cheese, ice cream, etc), should that yogurt have its own page on Wikipedia, or should yogurt be listed on the milk page because it's just a different form of milk? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.40.131.235 ( talk) 13:43, 29 June 2010 (UTC) reply

"The EPA promoted this policy by presenting it as recycling and rechristening sewage sludge as "biosolids", as they are solids produced by biological activities." Somebody had an opinion...-- 24.251.69.25 ( talk) 03:22, 14 September 2012 (UTC) reply

This article has serious NPOV issues as currently written. dougmc ( talk) 19:22, 12 September 2013 (UTC) reply

Seriously. A lot of hating on sludge. Nothing on the advantages of using sludge on food crops? 208.78.7.10 ( talk) 15:38, 11 October 2013 (UTC) reply

Agreed. Half the article reads like an advocacy piece against the commercial use of sludge. Example impartial sentence "For folks in rural areas, such as Kern County, CA, they are very familiar[88] with Los Angeles toilet byproducts as are innocent land owners across the country." 'very familiar' and 'innocent land owners' are loaded terms Misterjosh ( talk) 19:03, 14 January 2014 (UTC) reply

I agree. Some of the problems with the current version are:

1. Putting the contaminants first, then listing the fertilizer/nutrient benefit as an afterthought ("Seeing sewage contains not only heavy metals[4] and disease pathogens such as Clostridium difficile[5] but nutrients as well, companies such as Synagro embraced the nutrient idea and marketed sludge"). The nutrients are the driving reason farmers use it.
2. Starting the article with a technical discussion of pollutants ("Pollutants"), then "Dangers", then "Lawsuits and court cases", then "Local government ordinances and complaints". All of these sections are framed such that they can mostly only contain negative information. A better way to start the article would be a background section with history of sludge and night soil (a similar concept, and also sometimes used as fertilizer historically and currently, but not treated), and how it has been dealt with over time.
3. Background and section is has too much selective reporting of current criticism (e.g. "have been used in the UK, Europe and China agriculturally for more than 80 years, though there is increasing pressure to stop the practice of land application due to farm land contamination and public outrage", "In the 1990s there was pressure in some European countries to ban the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer", an entire paragraph on the name "biosolids" (it would be fair to note that it was introduced by the industry, but it doesn't need a full paragraph with every alternative term rejected)). Some of the most recent discussion (e.g. 1990's) is in the very beginning, when really older history should be at the beginning. The only reasonably detailed actual history is the NYC part, and even that only starts in 1884 (I am sure there is plenty of older information about sewage practices and sludge before 1884). This section also finishes with a claim about current practices, which does not belong in history.
4. The "Hazardous waste" section is problematic for two reasons. First, it should probably be combined with at least some of the negative sections (it seems dubious to have "Pollutants", "Dangers" and "Hazardous waste"). It is also very misleading. For example, it states, "Every household in the United States is authorized to discharge up to 220 pounds of hazardous waste per month to the sewage treatment plant [35] legally without reporting it. This is the equivalent to a household disposing 2 gallons of mercury down the drain, per month.". Even if it's true households could put 2 gallons of mercury down the drain every month, it's fairly obvious (especially in the absence of a citation that this really happens) that the average amount actually' disposed is far less. However, it then takes this arbitrary upper limit and runs with it, saying "Mercury is well documented to have profound detrimental effect to human health as MSDS sheets show". This is undue weight without information about how much mercury is actually in treated sludge. There is a vague uncited claim, "In general, the more effectively a wastewater stream is treated, the greater the resulting concentration of contaminants into the product sludge". This may be true for certain contaminants, but there needs to be a citation, and clarification which contaminants this applies to.
5. There is then a "Political issue" section, which serves as another place to put almost solely negative information. There is no information about people or groups politically in favor of using it, except "Farmers can save money from not having to purchase fertilizer" and some discussion of revenue.
6. Very biased further reading section. Not only does it have almost solely negative articles, there is a list, "Companies who spread sludge". At first it seems to just be a links to the corporate web sites, but in reality two are links to information about legal services (e.g. http://www.sludgevictims.com/Lawsuits/PA_Gilbert-Synagro.html). I'll probably remove this section entirely, but if it's put back it should be links to the official websites.

-- Superm401 - Talk 02:11, 2 March 2014 (UTC) reply

@ Superm401:. Makes sense. WP:JUSTDOIT. -- Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) ( Talk) 16:55, 3 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Part of the problem is that industry has made sludge a political football - money is changing hands to promote this idea as "safe" and "green". As a society in any country, just as throughout history, we need to deal with waste. I am not disputing the biased point of view, however we need to be careful with any language that promotes the contamination of the land we use to grow our food, and the food product we put on the table for our families.

You could argue that Fukushima and Chernobyl were good events - people left the area, and the environment/wildlife returned. Rite? An environmental catastrophe is just that - we should be unashamed to call a bad idea or bad practice as something bad. Similarly, haphazard sludge spreading on farmland should be considered too risky.

If the benefit of sludge is just nutrients and economics, the tradeoff is pcb contamination (or worse) of precious and limited farm land.

Perhaps if we separated human waste from industrial waste (from source), maybe this would be acceptable, but that idea also is frought with issues (aka folks dumping medicines down toilet).

Please keep all this in mind while you consider edits - you might not live next to one of these fields, but the food for you/your family might have come from what is now a toxic waste dump - and yes, the science supports the theory that products grown near or in sludge are contaminated before heading to market.

Society has landfills for a reason. Science is making strides to recover nutrients from waste treatment, but these solutions are not economical yet. Until we can safely extract pure nutrients, the only solutions are incineration or landfilling.

Edit as you will - at society's peril. 207.144.245.216 ( talk) 05:31, 17 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Environmental Racism? Really? That's allowed?

So much for a neutral viewpoint. It's nonsense like this that will keep Wikipedia from being a legitimate and trusted information source, and instead will remain as the world's most sophisicated 'argument solver'

-- 172.219.65.107 ( talk) 07:54, 7 May 2014 (UTC) reply

Agreed. The fact that the first section of this article is "Environmental Justice" is ridiculous. Rather than proving information about the nature and treatment of different types of sludge the article immediately dives into a political point of view on the issue. As someone who has worked in the wastewater industry I can also point out that the facts in this section are questionable. It's phrasing makes it sound like the standard policy for sludge removal is finding the nearest ghetto and dumping it in peoples front yards. Sludge typically is shipped to a landfill, or disposed of through land application on government approved sites. Considering Michael More is one of the major sources used here, it is clearly a partisan article that needs editing and the priority message should be informative rather than political — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.220.221.35 ( talk) 19:42, 10 June 2014 (UTC) reply

+1, this article is badly damaged. 86.148.40.50 ( talk) 17:22, 14 July 2014 (UTC) reply

This article's rubbish, but I can't be bothered to even look at fixing it as 207.144.245.216 will revert. Get some perspective. Everything on there should be under a subheading 'Sewage sludge opposition in America' or something. It's pretty rude to just hijack a wikipedia page for your own personal political crusades. 86.148.40.50 ( talk) 17:29, 14 July 2014 (UTC) reply

FYI - two GALLONS of Mercury weighs approximately 26 pounds - it's about 13 times as dense as H2O.. someone forgot their maths, or lost a decimal point someplace. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.116.168.11 ( talk) 18:26, 18 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Good point. I removed that and the surrounding sentences. The sources said nothing about discharging mercury in sewage. -- Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) ( Talk) 17:42, 19 September 2014 (UTC) reply

You should really include the uses of Sewage Sludge and a little bit more on why it is created. This is one of the most important things about this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OnceUponAdrine ( talk • contribs) 04:58, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

In my opinion this page should be renamed to "sewage sludge" as that's what it deals with (in the beginning other types of sludges are briefly mentioned but the whole article is on sewage sludge). There is a redirect from sewage sludge to sludge already, but I think it is better if this page was called "sewage sludge". EvM-Susana ( talk) 20:49, 24 October 2014 (UTC) reply

I wholeheartedly agree. I have a feeling that many years ago it was Sewage sludge and got changed, but I may be mistaken. Very pedantically, and taking note of the maual of style, it should of course be Sewage sludge.   Velella   ^{Velella Talk}   20:25, 25 October 2014 (UTC) reply

OK, so if there are no objections in the next few days then I will make this name change happen. EvM-Susana ( talk) 11:25, 27 October 2014 (UTC) reply

I have taken the considerable liberty of tagging this page using your text as the reasoning. Conventionally, it is usual to leave about a week before actioning such a suggestion. If you would prefer that the page wasn't tagged, please feel free to revert my edits - I won't be offended !.   Velella   ^{Velella Talk}   12:22, 27 October 2014 (UTC) reply

I think that's good, thanks. How long does it usually take after such a tag was added (I am still new here)? EvM-Susana ( talk) 13:37, 27 October 2014 (UTC) reply

Strongly disagree. A sewage sludge is a type of sludge. There is no problem having a short article on sludge (albeit longer than the present stub), with a link in the appropriate section to a longer article on sewage sludge!

—DIV ( 137.111.13.4 ( talk) 05:52, 11 February 2015 (UTC)) reply

Update: Sorry, the sludge talk page now redirects to the sewage sludge talk page. Sorry for any confusion. —DIV ( 137.111.13.4 ( talk) 05:55, 11 February 2015 (UTC)) reply

These redirects (sludge talk points to sewage sludge talk) is nonsense. There is no need to have a page that contains nothing useful and no references.

Now what should be do about the other disputed aspects on this page? Do you Velella have the energy to go through it and somehow resolve the issues? I am a bit lost on what to do about it. It's clear that previous editors had quite a US-centric view here; the page would probably benefit from adding also perspectives from Europe where there is maybe less controversy about reuse of sewage sludge (in fact, only some states of Germany (e.g. Bavaria) still allow agricultural reuse, in the other states it is usually incinerated). EvM-Susana ( talk) 13:37, 27 October 2014 (UTC) reply

OK, just took another look and this page is probably a lost cause... Would take a lot of work to get into good shape. All the stuff about controversies is actually about land application of sewage sludge in the US (or reuse of sewage sludge in agriculture). Perhaps this could be taken out and put into a separate Wikipedia article? If not, then the page could be restructured so that it's all grouped together under the heading of "sewage sludge in agriculture"? EvM-Susana ( talk) 13:47, 27 October 2014 (UTC) reply

Not a lost cause I don't believe. It is certainly painfully US centric but this may reflect the fragmented regulatory framework in the US more than anything else, coupled with a high availability of information on controversies on the web. It may, as you suggest, be prudent at some stage to separate out the use in agriculture in the USA into a daughter article to avoid undue weight here. I currently have very little time at present. After the end of this month I will probably be largely absent from Wikipedia until next March . I would go ahead with the name change in early November and work on improvements bit by bit. It will need a request to admins to move it to a new name as there is an existing re-direct as the desired name. The place to request the move is here. Best of luck.   Velella   ^{Velella Talk}   14:12, 27 October 2014 (UTC) reply

Talk page

Can we remove the redirect of Talk:Sludge? —DIV ( 137.111.13.4 ( talk) 05:57, 11 February 2015 (UTC)) reply

yes, good point. I have removed the redirect now. EvM-Susana ( talk) 07:28, 11 February 2015 (UTC) reply

OK, have done some work on this page. Removed stuff that was from the old "sludge" page, now the focus is on "sewage sludge". Also tried to group together all the stuff that refers to controversies in the US. Tried to start out with some neutral information. Tried to make it clear with the headings where it is US-centric. Hoping that other people from Europe may add more information about the situation in Europe where we don't have these heated debates. Needs much more work, but right now I will focus on other articles first. EvM-Susana ( talk) 11:12, 3 November 2014 (UTC) reply

Have done more work on this page. I think it is slowly obtaining a logical structure and becoming encyclopedic in nature. More work remains, e.g. checking out and culling some of the superfluous references and removing some of the very specific US examples. More information from outside of the US needs to be added. EvM-Susana ( talk) 08:21, 27 April 2015 (UTC) reply

For better formatting and ease of reading, I feel Disposal Section should be placed directly after the Treatment section. I also feel that sub-headers in Disposal section should mirror this quote in the Treatment section: "Following treatment, sewage sludge is either landfilled, incinerated, applied on agricultural land or, in some cases, retailed or given away for free to the general public." Sub-headers should be

Landfill

Incineration

Agriculture

Public Use

Sale

Free

I was not completely sure how to label "sale" versus "free." I was unable to find good synonyms for "given away for free." When opposite of retail was browsed, I only unearthed "wholesale," which is not the desired term. I plan to add to the Landfill section Berzzerkerz ( talk) 17:29, 12 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I have proceeded to switch "Disposal" with "Health Risks," and have re-arranged sub-sections of "Disposal" section Berzzerkerz ( talk) 17:31, 12 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I am mistaken, I was actually unable to re-arrange successfully, and am currently figuring out how tore-arrange without copy and pasting (rids of all previous edits to focused section). I feel instead of sections in terms of Sewage Sludge Treatment, Disposal, Health Risks, we should organize in terms of types of Sewage Sludge implementation, such as Landfill, Agriculture, and Ocean Dumping. I prefer this because each implementation method has their own individualized treatment and disposal methods, as well as health risks; each implementation section would ideally have their own treatment, disposal, and health risks subsections. I feel with would be less organized to just present all treatment methods in treatment and all disposal methods in disposal, when they are in fact connected to each other based on the type of implementation. Please let me know what you think about this. Berzzerkerz ( talk) 18:21, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I was thinking about the structure/layout of the Treatment, Disposal, and Health Effects sections. This would take a lot of time and effort in re-organization but would definitely benefit the reader. I came across this idea when adding to the Landfill sub-section of "disposal." I found I was unable to isolate from simply disposal of sewage sludge in landfills the specific treatment of sewage sludge to be sent to landfills, and the specific health effects caused by landfill specific sewage sludge.

If there exists no differences between types of sewage sludge corresponding to types of implementation, then we might better organize the article based on treatment, disposal, and health effects of class of sewage sludge rather than by implementation method. (Different methods of implementation I suppose use specific class of sewage sludge (A or B); from this we might be better off organizing this way:

Class A Sewage Sludge

(e.g.)Land Fill

Treatment

Disposal

Health Effects

(e.g.)Ocean Dumping

Treatment

Disposal

Health Effects

Class B Sewage Sludge

etc.

or

Class A Sewage Sludge (List types)

Treatment

Disposal

Health Effects

This may be better because Types of Sewage Sludge implementation may be explored in other WikiArticles (if there are some for Landfill, Ocean dumping, etc.) Class A and Class B would go into effects in general, but no specific to specific type of implementation. Any thoughts on this?

Berzzerkerz ( talk) 17:56, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Hi, Berzzerkerz, I have just done a little clean-up operation of the headings in this article. I don't think it's worthwhile to restructure it according Class A and Class B sludge given that a) these are terminologies from the United States and not the same in other countries and b) these refer to sewage sludge AFTER TREATMENT. Note there is a separate article on sewage sludge treatment and also biosolids where the information about Class A and B is more relevant (and already for detailed). This article here is just an overview article. EMsmile ( talk) 13:07, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply

"Regulations that limit contact with biosolids do not prevent environmental processes in the conceptual model such as aerosolization or erosion and the death or multiplication of pathogens" This quote is taken from worldlibrary.org which is a blacklisted site. I could not find the original use of this quote on any other sources so I have removed the quote from the article( Jackie Kerth ( talk) 17:39, 12 November 2019 (UTC)). reply

Article Praises

This article is really good at explaining what sewage sludge is and the terms related to it. It's also good at remaining objective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OnceUponAdrine ( talk • contribs) 04:51, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply