Biorem Technologies
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WARNING! Sewage sludge is toxic. Food should not be grown in "biosolids." Join the Food Rights Network. |
Biorem Technologies, Inc. is a company that, in its own words, supplies "biofilters to the municipal odour [sic] control market with over 400 installations in the US and Canada." Specifically, "Biorem has specialized in odor removal in pumping stations, lift stations, headworks and biosolids handling facilities."[1]
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Toxic Sludge Gasification Controversy
"Biosolids" is the sewage sludge industry's euphemistic PR term for toxic sludge. EPA whistleblower Hugh Kaufman has called anaerobic digestion, or using sludge to generate methanol or energy, the "most environmentally sound approach, but also the most expensive," to sludge disposal. However, anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge, while it reduces the volume of the sludge and heats it to a temperature that kills many pathogens, still leaves behind what BKT and others in the industry call "digestate" or, more specifically in this case, "biosolids." These "Class A Biosolids" (so-called because the Environmental Protection Agency has stricter limits on pathogens and "vector attraction" for Class A than for Class B Biosolids, i.e. they must not attract disease-carrying insects or rodents, etc.) still contain other sludge contaminants, including Dioxins and Furans, Flame Retardants, Metals, Organochlorine Pesticides, 1,2-Dibromo-3-Chloropropane (DBCP), Naphthalene, Triclosan, Nonylphenols, Phthalates, Nanosilver, and thousands more substances.
The EPA's 2009 Targeted National Sewage Sludge Survey (TNSSS) concluded that all sewage sludge, Class A, Class B or otherwise, contains toxic and hazardous materials, including large numbers of endocrine disruptors. The TNSSS results are described in two EPA reports published in 2009. EPA found that dozens of hazardous materials, not regulated and not required to be tested for, have been documented in each and every one of the sludge samples EPA took around the USA.[2] And yet Class A "Biosolids" may be applied to cropland with no restrictions and sold or given away to gardeners as "organic fertilizers," and hundreds of municipalities and companies do so.
Exhibitor at the 2011 BioCycle 11th Annual Conference on "Renewable Energy from Organics Recycling"
Biorem Technologies was an exhibitor at the 2011 BioCycle 11th Annual Conference on "Renewable Energy from Organics Recycling." BioCycle Magazine is a publication serving the interests of the sewage sludge industry.[3]
Resources
Other SourceWatch Resources
References
- ↑ Industry Canada, Biorem Technologies Inc. - Complete Profile, government industry profile, accessed November 3, 2011
- ↑ Environmental Protection Agency, TNSSS: EPA-822-R-08-016 and EPA-822-R-08-018, January 2009
- ↑ BioCycle, Exhibitor Directory, publisher's website, accessed November 3, 2011
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