A Toxic ‘Sewage Sludge’ is Covering Britain’s Crops in Microplastics – Then Flowing Into Our Rivers

A toxic cocktail of chemicals is being spread on British farmland due to a near-total lack of rules on what farmers can put on their crops, campaigners warn today. 

Environmentalists including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the former Chair of the Environment Agency Emma Howard Boyd and the campaign group, Fighting Dirty have joined forces to demand that the Government regulates the use of ‘sewage sludge’ to prevent toxic run-off further polluting Britain’s dying waterways. 

Currently, the great majority of so-called sewage sludge is either sold or given to farmers by water companies to use as “fertiliser”. 

Fighting Dirty says that while it contains useful nutrients, as a result of “shocking regulatory failure”, it also contains a cocktail of highly toxic chemicals, including dioxins, furans and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. 

A report commissioned by the Environment Agency (EA) in 2017 found that, as a result, English crops were contaminated with such chemicals at “levels that may present a risk to human health”. It stated that further contaminants in sewage sludge, including microplastics, could result in “soils becoming unsuitable for agriculture”.

Despite promising urgent resolution since 2017, a court case by Fighting Dirty exposed that the EA was hampered by delays and a lack of “Ministerial appetite” preventing them from removing the ‘exempted’ status of sewage sludge, bringing it into a permitting regime that would see it treated like other industrial waste.

Now campaigners, and a former Environment Agency chief, is pressuring the Government to act. 

Ministers could direct the Environment Agency to update the decades-old rules for testing and regulating sewage sludge and other wastes spread on land, avoiding toxins from poisoning our environment and our bodies.

The demand is backed by top environmental organisations including Friends of the Earth, Soil Association and CPRE. It also has the backing of notable environmentalists active in this field, including Guy Singh-Watson, farmer and Founder of Riverford, and Caroline Lucas, the former Leader of the Green Party.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, one of the signatories to an open letter to the Government, said: “This issue should and could have been sorted out years ago. The experts at the Environment Agency knew something needed to be done, the crew at Fighting Dirty knew something needed to be done when they took the EA to court and today we’re showing a wide range of serious environmental organisations across the UK also know that something needs to be done. 

“All we’re missing now is that political steer. A swipe of the pen from [environment secretary] Steve Reed [would] allow the Environment Agency to do their job. So come on Labour – time to do the right thing to start clearing this mess up.”

Notably, Emma Howard Boyd CBE, former Chair of the Environment Agency, is also a signatory. She described the current rules as “decades-old” and “not fit for purpose.”

“The Environment Agency has recommended a course of action – to modernise regulations in line with the latest science and environmental health concerns. But it needs the UK Government to act for this to happen. This would then free up the EA to focus on what it’s meant to do, regulating what is and what isn’t spread onto our farmland.”

Fighting Dirty Director, Georgia Elliot-Smith said she was “still hopeful” that the Labour Government will “step up and do the right thing” and update this long-outdated testing regime.

“The ‘do nothing’ option, as outlined by the Environment Agency itself, presents unacceptable risk to human health whilst leaving our soil unfit for agriculture. This can’t be allowed to continue,” Elliot-Smith added.

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Statement from campaigners and experts in full: 

In the UK, we have a dirty secret that’s recently been brought into the light. Sewage sludge, we now know, contains far more than just human waste. Not only does a wide range of synthetic chemicals pour down the drain from homes, businesses and roads, but the water companies also allow liquid waste disposers, for a fee, to add their chemical effluent to the sewage stream.

The result is that sewage sludge contains a very wide range of hazardous synthetic substances, from microplastics to furans, dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls, phthalates and PFASs (forever chemicals). Because the testing rules have not been updated since 1989, sludge is tested only for regulated metal content and for pathogens on a voluntary basis. None of the unregulated compounds of concern are checked before being sent to farms. This means that neither farmers nor those who buy their products have any means of knowing how much of these compounds are being spread on the land. Just as remarkably, there are no legal limits on the concentration of any of these poisons in the sewage sludge passed to farmers. 

The environmental campaign Fighting Dirty took the Environment Agency to court in the hope of prompting stronger regulatory action. But the judge ruled that the Environment Agency needed a ministerial steer from Defra to take action. 

As such, we, the undersigned, ask the Environment Minister to protect the land, groundwater, and, of course, human health by taking immediate action in updating the testing and regulating regime of sewage sludge to prevent this toxic cocktail from being spread on our land. 

Signed: 

• George Monbiot, Steve Hyndside and Georgia Elliott-Smith – Founding Directors of Fighting Dirty
• Rosie Downes, Head of Campaigns at Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland
• Christina Dixon, Ocean Campaign Lead, Environmental Investigation Agency 
• Dr Joanna Cloy – Senior Project Manager of Fidra’s Sewage Free Soils Project
• Jamie Page – Chief Executive of Cancer Prevention and Education Trust 
• Roc Sandford – Director, Ocean Rebellion 
• Caroline Lucas – Former MP and former Leader of The Green Party 
• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
• Guy Singh-Watson, Farmer and Founder of Riverford
• Daniel Webb – Founder and Director of EveryDay Plastic 
• Jane Martin, CEO of City to Sea
• Antoinette Vermilye, Co-Founder, Gallifrey Foundation and SHE Changes Climate
• Baroness Rosie Boycott, House of Lords
• Carina Millstone, Executive Director, Feedback Global
• George Harding-Rolls, Campaign Lead, Action Speaks Louder
• Mary-Ann Ochota, President, CPRE, the Countryside Charity
• Dr Richard Benwell, CEO of Wildlife and Countryside Link
• Dr Rob Collins, Director of Policy and Science at the Rivers Trust
• Jojo Mehta, Co-Founder & CEO, Stop Ecocide International
• Bianca Pitt, Co-Founder, SHE Changes Climate
• Gareth Morgan, Head of Farming and Land Use Policy, The Soil Association
• Dr Anna Watson, Director of Policy & Advocacy, CHEM Trust 
• Emma Howard Boyd CBE, Chair, ClientEarth and former Chair of the Environment Agency
• James Wallace, CEO, River Action UK
• Will McCallum, Co-Executive Director, Greenpeace UK. 

A Defra spokesperson told Byline Times: “We need to see the safe and sustainable use of sludge in agriculture to help clean up our waterways.

“The [ongoing] Independent Water Commission will explore a range of issues, including the regulatory framework for sludge spreading, and we continue to work closely with the Environment Agency, water companies and farmers in this area.”

All sludge produced by water companies for food use is treated before spreading on agricultural land, which typically destroys pathogens (but not, for example, microplastics). This is required by the water industry’s Biosolids Assurance Scheme, which all English water companies are meant to comply with.

Defra says it has contributed to the design and development of the UK Water Industry Research on how some chemicals are not being destroyed by the process.

Water companies must maintain a register containing information on the quantity, quality and where sludge has been spread, which is then reviewed by the Environment Agency. They also require that sludge producers test the sludge and soil. There are also limits on heavy metals and restrictions on crop harvesting and the grazing of animals on land where sludge has been used.

Trade body Water UK told the BBC they were aware of concerns but that no legal standards for contaminants had been set by the Government. 

The trade body representative added: “Although there are some concerns that some bioresources may contain contaminants, such as microplastics and forever chemicals (PFAS), there are no legal standards for them and, in some cases, no agreed assessment techniques.”

“Any standards and techniques are a matter for the Government and the regulator.”

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