Spreading microplastics, spreading shit

There is a new blog post entitled, “Memorializing white supremacy.”



Sewage

George Monbiot writes in the United Kingdom for a U.K. paper so it’s easy to think he’s describing British problems that are, well, only in Britain. And often he is. I think that might not be the case this time.

He’s writing about sewage and he starts by writing about overwhelmed and under-regulated sewage treatment plants in Britain so I almost passed over the rest of the article. But it wasn’t just about overwhelmed and under-regulated sewage treatment plants.[1]

After we get through his outrage about untreated sewage flowing into British rivers, it turns out he’s talking about sludge, distributed as fertilizer. It turns out that modern, well-run sewage treatment plants are pretty good at filtering out microplastics so they don’t flow directly into bodies of water.[2]

But those microplastics have to go somewhere, and they do, into the sludge. Which is distributed to farmers as fertilizer. Where the microplastics are leeched out and flow right back into rivers.[3]

I’m pretty sure this is going to be an Amerikkkan problem as well.

George Monbiot, “Muckraking Journalism,” May 29, 2022, https://www.monbiot.com/2022/05/29/muckraking-journalism/


  1. [1]George Monbiot, “Muckraking Journalism,” May 29, 2022, https://www.monbiot.com/2022/05/29/muckraking-journalism/
  2. [2]George Monbiot, “Muckraking Journalism,” May 29, 2022, https://www.monbiot.com/2022/05/29/muckraking-journalism/
  3. [3]George Monbiot, “Muckraking Journalism,” May 29, 2022, https://www.monbiot.com/2022/05/29/muckraking-journalism/

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