As the human population grows and produces more waste, engineers need more and more to look for safe and healthy ways to get human waste back into nature where it belongs, to protect the health of our children and their children.
Sludge has been treated for a fair number of years now, in particular since the Clean Water Act came out. Before that, a lot of sewage sludge was actually dumped straight into our water (or into the ocean). And industries thought nothing about dumping heavy metals and toxic waste with their other sewage waste. But now industrial companies are monitored to ensure they don’t dump toxic waste in with their sewage waste, and sewage waste is treated. Everything released from sewage treatment plants as safe-to-use is strictly regulated, and so is the land application of the biosolids.
The most viable use of biosolids is land applications. Most valuable for its organic matter, it can be used not only by farmers to improve their crops, but also by land rehabilitators who reclaim land damaged by mining.
Other uses involve further processing of the biosolids. Most biosolids are currently released as “cake”, however, this can be further processed into compost, or dried into pellets. These can then be marketed. Pellets can also be used to generate electricity. When used in this way by the waste water treatment plant, the plant can be self-sufficient in terms of energy required.
For more details on composting with biosolids, please read the following article "Why I love biosolids".
When none of these options are utilized, biosolids are dumped into landfills with the rest of our garbage.
What do you think should be done with biosolids?
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