The Poop Scoop: We're Literally Growing Food in Sewage (And Why That's Bad)

A deep dive into biosolids, forever chemicals, and the fertilizer industry's crappiest secret

Have you ever heard the word "biosolids"? It's a fun word, isn't it? It looks like it was cooked up in a lab because it says something without actually saying anything. And that was exactly the goal with this word because biosolids are a mixture that contains toxic forever chemicals, prescription drugs, and basically everything your body doesn't use when you poop. They're contaminating farms across the US because sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants is turned into fertilizer that's spread on crops.

About half of the sewage sludge in the United States is made into fertilizer, according to the National Biosolids Data Project. Since 2016, almost 20 billion pounds of sewage sludge have been applied to American farm fields according to EPA data, covering about 20 million acres of farmland in the United States. Thankfully that's a small percentage of total US fields, but still, it's kind of gross, isn't it?

What's in a Name? The Great Biosolids Rebrand

Basically, "biosolids" is the sanitized marketing term that some clever PR firm came up with to sound sexier than "refined or treated sewage sludge." The term was originally introduced by the Water Environment Federation in 1998. I consider it a euphemism designed to hide the fact that sewage sludge contains substances that are harmful to the environment. There's just something visceral about it… If it said on a bag of carrots "grown in refined sewage sludge," I don't think people would buy it as much at the supermarket.

So what's in biosolids? Human waste, industrial discharge, hospital waste, pharmaceutical residue, and chemicals from businesses. "Biosolids" really is a great euphemism for it—it's just a bunch of junk that you really wouldn't think you'd want growing your food.

The Forever Chemical Problem

PFAS: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

One area where regulations have especially failed to keep up is the presence of forever chemicals inside biosolids (and elsewhere). These PFAS chemicals have persistence and toxicity. This means they do not break down in the environment and can move through soil to contaminate drinking water. In fact, you might want to check because your drinking water could already be contaminated by them. They're global pollutants that threaten the health of people and wildlife, coming from everything from firefighting chemicals to nonstick pans.

In addition to cancer and higher cholesterol risks, these forever chemicals have been linked to liver and kidney damage, disrupted fetal development, and lowered vaccine efficiency. There's widespread contamination in sewage sludge, in 2019, the state of Maine found that 95% of sewage sludge produced in that state contained unsafe levels of PFAS chemicals.

Microplastics: The New Kid on the Block

Another threat inside biosolids is microplastics. A study found that just four years of sludge spreading increased the amount of microplastics in soil by up to 1,450%. This contamination persisted in the soil long after spreading had ceased. There are unknown health impacts because there's been limited research on the long-term effects of microplastics in the food chain, and we have enough microplastics in water and everything else without adding more.

The Chemical Cocktail

Other contaminants include heavy metals and there are at least 27 heavy metals found in sewage sludge. None of the toxic organic chemicals it contains are regulated or even monitored. You've got pharmaceuticals and hormones, things like birth control hormones, antibiotics, and painkillers found in sewage sludge. Do you really want that growing your crops?

Then there are industrial chemicals. In 2017, a report uncovered that sludge destined for English farms contained persistent organic pollutants like dioxins and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at "levels that may present a risk to human health." The study also found PCBs, forever chemicals, microplastics, and pesticides.

Not to mention pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites not fully eliminated by treatment. Remember, one way they tracked COVID was through wastewater treatment facilities. When there was a spike of COVID, there was a spike at the wastewater treatment plant. This kind of stuff can survive some of the processes to make sewage sludge that gets applied to fields and then sold in supermarkets to you and your family’s plates. Delicious.

Real-World Health Impacts

By the late 1990s, real-world health impacts were already documented. Reports of adverse health effects started showing up in local newspapers across the US and Canada. Skin lesions often developed in people who contacted the material. Residents near land application sites reported burning eyes, burning lungs, and difficulty breathing when exposed to dust blowing from treated fields.

In 2012, scientists at the University of Aberdeen studying sheep maintained on pastures fertilized with sewage sludge found a high incidence of abnormalities in the animals. Chemicals such as lead, mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls, arsenic, and certain solvents and pesticides pose an insidious threat to the development of the next generation's brains, and wouldn’t you know it, all these chemicals are found in biosolids.

Why Aren't They Banned Already?

So that brings us to the big question: why aren't they banned? This seems pretty cut and dry. We're putting literal shit where our animals graze and our food is grown. Granted, it's been treated somewhat, but that doesn't really help much.

The Money Problem

Companies are concerned about what they would do with the sludge if they couldn't spread it on farmland. Farmers are somewhat concerned too because it's an interesting situation. Often farmers are paid to take the biosolids fertilizer, so not only do they get free nutrients for their crops, they're also paid to dispose of the sludge.

Water companies estimate costs would run into hundreds of millions of dollars, potentially billions, to deal with it properly. It's possible to do this the right way, but it's expensive. It would probably mean new infrastructure, and in many places there's no alternative right now because they have nowhere to put it except landfills (which is actually where we do put a lot of it in the United States right now).

The Usual Suspects

There's lobbying and corporate-funded studies to show that applying them is fine, when really it's the same old profit-over-environmental-protection that seems to exist everywhere. When I look at all the issues I've personally fought or advocated for at the local level, this one was among the easiest to convince people to my side. The thing is, a lot of people just don't even know this is happening.

There's fear among the corporate overlords that if backlash comes, they'll have to do something, but they're not really preparing for what that is. It's one of those issues they're trying to sweep under the rug (or dare I say flush), but eventually we're probably not going to want it anymore as a society.

Regulatory Failures

Most regulation focuses on bacteria and heavy metals, ignoring modern contaminants like forever chemicals and microplastics because we didn't really know about them when the rules were written. In many places there's not much testing required, and often the tests that are required are self-administered rather than done by the state, so there's a lot of room for manipulation.

Many European countries have much stronger regulations than the US or UK. Some places even have complete bans—Switzerland and the Netherlands both proactively banned sewage sludge on farmland altogether. So it is possible, and it's something we should consider.

Leading the Way: State-Level Action

In the US, we've left a lot of power in state hands on this issue, and some have done more than others. Maine is a leader, they're the first state to ban biosolids containing forever chemicals for land treatment. They're phasing out all PFAS-containing products by 2030 and have allocated $100 million to help affected farmers. As you can see, it's not cheap!

Other states are following suit such as Vermont which is doing more these days, and others as well. Canada no longer accepts biosolids imports from the US because of PFAS concerns.

My Florida Experience

The Great Northward Migration

I'll tell you about my experience advocating on this issue. In Florida, a good while ago those in South Florida realized biosolids were bad, so they had the legislature say biosolids couldn't be applied to fields in far South Florida. So what happened? The biosolids drove north on the highway to more rural areas where there were fewer people to complain. And guess what happened? Terrible pollution.

One farm in the area I worked in applied biosolids, and before long the nearby lake was covered in algae blooms. It had been a pristine lake before—there was never really a huge amount of people or pollution up there. But it was pretty much safe until this happened. We believe that when it rained (as it tends to in Florida), a lot of these biosolids washed off the fields into canals and landed in the lake. It was basically a mini sewer, and we're still fighting today with legacy pollution load in that lake from biosolids application that hasn't happened for almost a decade.

Local Success (Sort Of)

The state didn't really let local counties ban biosolids except for those counties lucky enough to be listed in the South Florida exemption. So our local county put a temporary moratorium on applications. Working with the environmental community, we talked to farmers and explained how it wasn't really a good idea environmentally. You know what? A lot of these farmers were cool with it because they've lived here for generations and care about the land and surrounding areas.

It was actually a great success doing this advocacy work with local farmers and landowners. Working together on an issue when we were often in conflict. These days, every year the county commission renews the ban. But those biosolids just kept going north on I-95 a little bit further, and all throughout the St. Johns River basin, people are now concerned and raising questions because of algae blooms and other pollution.

Better Solutions Exist

Advanced Treatment Technologies

In the modern world, we have great potential ways to deal with sewage that are environmentally sound, or at least more environmentally sound than spreading it on farmland. There are advanced treatment technologies like thermal hydrolysis (which breaks down large molecules using heat), high-temperature incineration, and pyrolysis and gasification that convert waste to energy without environmental release.

Don't be fooled by other marketing terms, there are things like Class A biosolids out there that are supposed to be better than Class B for the environment, but they're still just sewage sludge, and we need better ways to deal with it.

Source Reduction

We could also focus on better industrial pre-treatment with stricter controls on what enters sewer systems, more pharmaceutical take-back programs so people don't flush prescriptions down the toilet, and PFAS manufacturing bans.

It's 2025, and there are designed facilities with contamination controls that work really well to make usable products and energy. One method I'm familiar with is the Janicki Omniprocessor, which has proven effective in several places and I'd love to see get more widespread adoption.

Other proposed solutions include deep injection wells (though I'm not a huge fan because that's just digging a really, really deep hole and shoving stuff down there and I worry about what we don't know).

The Economic Case for a Ban

I would personally advocate for a ban because of the hidden health costs, medical expenses from contamination-related illnesses, agricultural losses from contaminated farms losing productivity and market access, and long-term cleanup costs and remediation expenses like the lake I worked with experienced. A ban would save money in the long run.

There's also growing consumer demand for uncontaminated and organic foods. We have more focus on human health now, and maybe this is one area Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can actually do some good (as opposed to vaccines, heaven help us). There are also increased insurance costs for contaminated operations and decreased property values when you apply this stuff for a long time.

Banning biosolids and dealing with sewage the right way also has economic benefits: more jobs in clean technology, potentially renewable energy from waste-to-energy systems, and export opportunities for clean agricultural products that command premium prices.

Busting the Safety Myths

You'll hear a lot of myths about biosolids being safe, so let me bust a couple right now. There's no safe threshold, these are forever chemicals that cause harm to human health at incredibly low concentrations, to the point where there's basically no safe concentration. The logical thing would be not to spread them all over the land.

There are cumulative effects, multiple contaminants with synergistic impacts that can really mess up the land and nearby water. Vulnerable populations like pregnant women and children are at higher risk. If we looked at the cost of a ban versus long-term health and environmental damage, we'd see it's a huge monetary benefit, though there will be short-term costs because we have to build facilities to manage waste products we're no longer spreading on our food sources.

Some argue we need biosolids because it's a source of nutrients like phosphorus, which comes from nonrenewable phosphate rock. But there are organic and synthetic alternatives available, plus interesting research on things like seaweed as potential fertilizer. We have options that don't involve putting contaminated poop on our lunch. Clean compost and other additives can provide better, more sustainable long-term benefits because contaminated agriculture threatens long-term productivity and food security.

What You Can Do

I'd encourage you to support organic and verified clean agriculture. If you find out something is using biosolids, I'd really encourage you not to buy it. It's not like they advertise it though, there's no 💩 emoji on every bag of produce from a biosolids-treated farm. (Maybe there should be.) Do you think that would make people more or less likely to buy that produce?

Look and see if this is happening in your area, and if so, contact your elected officials. Community organizing and local-level advocacy is really the best way to solve this problem in the short term. I'm a big fan of moratoriums halting applications while officials think about it and that's a great first step. Then maybe comprehensive testing and mandatory screening for the full range of contaminants on areas where they were applied, plus health studies looking at potential disease clusters based on application locations.

I'm looking for more state-level bans soon and eventually federal action. This seems like the kind of issue the MAHA movement would be behind, so maybe there will be progress there, though it's probably more under the Department of Agriculture or EPA than Health and Human Services…

The Bottom Line

This is an instance where I think we have to do something inconvenient because when in doubt, you should protect public health and environmental health. It's an intergenerational thing too. We don't know what will happen in 100 years if we keep putting this stuff on soil. Do we really want to leave that kind of legacy for our children and grandchildren?

There are also environmental justice concerns because people who live closer to agricultural communities deal with this more, and many people near agricultural communities already deal with all sorts of pollutant and environmental justice issues. This would be one less to worry about.

Technological solutions do exist. They'll probably be expensive, but all infrastructure is expensive to put in, and then it can benefit the community for a very long time. It's the political will we don't have and thus citizens must demand action from elected officials. Time is critical because every day we delay means more literal shit is thrown on our food and land.

The choice is clear: short-term convenience versus long-term health and safety. To have food grown with poop or not grown with poop. History is going to judge us harshly for this one. It's such a gross thing, and we kind of do know better.

Let's work for a better future with cleaner farms, safer food, healthier communities. This is all possible. We just have to move beyond politically tested words designed to make gross things less gross. If we didn't call it "biosolids" and called it "refined sewage sludge," I think a lot fewer people would be interested in eating produce grown with that material.

Or maybe we do just need that 💩 label. It would definitely get the point across. (Or maybe something like the below…)