March 5, 2010

But it's organic

From ABC/Associated Press:
Claim: San Francisco Giving Gardeners Toxic Sludge
San Francisco wears its environmental consciousness like a green badge of honor. Residents separate and recycle their food scraps. Streets close to cars so people can walk and bike them. A city department even gives away "high-quality, nutrient-rich, organic bio-solids compost" to any and all takers.

But hold on there: A public interest and environmental advocacy group says San Francisco's free compost, used by community, backyard and school gardens in the Bay Area, is processed sewage sludge � the product of anything flushed, poured or dumped into the wastewater system, including industrial, chemical and pharmaceutical toxins.

"This sludge belongs in a hazardous waste dump," said Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association, before he poured some of the compost on carefully laid out plastic sheeting at the steps of San Francisco City Hall on Thursday.
This is a perfect example of the old: "if it's there, it must be bad" trope that is infecting people who do not have a rigorous mind. Even as little as twenty years ago, analyzing for a specific chemical would take a day or two and would give results down to a few parts per thousand. Any "contamination" under that level would simply not register. As the analysis could take a day or more, it was very expensive so you did not test for a lot of things. Now, tests can be done in under fifteen minutes with a desktop machine that yields results into the parts per billion range. The machines are still expensive but not that much and since the tests only take a few minutes, they are relatively cheap so you can test for a much broader spectrum of chemicals. People are now seeing measurable levels of all sorts of nasty stuff. Is it bad for you? At the doses present, no, absolutely not. But it's arsenic!!! But not at toxic levels. Water is toxic if you drink enough of it. These "Activists" need to take a couple of good high-school level chemistry and biology classes... Posted by DaveH at March 5, 2010 1:47 PM
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