Richard Honour

Richard Honour

Apr 12, 2015

Group 6 Copy 82
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The Loop: Toxins Returned To Us In Our Food and Water

Our assumption is that sewage sludge is packed with toxins and toxicants, simply because all that is washed, rinsed, drained and flushed from industry, farms, roadways, businesses, septage, hospitals and homes goes to and through the wastewater system, producing effluent and solids, the toxins from which are returned to us in our food and water.

While the liquid fraction is recycled back to our waterways, including into wetlands, rivers and Puget Sound, the solids, which contain the bulk of the toxins, and all of the materials yet to be degraded into ever more toxic materials, are disposed in forests and on rangelands and farms for recycling back into us.

One source of toxins headed for our foods and waters emanates from the decomposition of plastics that flow through the wastewater system into sewage sludge, to be degraded by the forces of weather, sunlight, oxygen and microbial decomposition in the forest and on the farm, yet the toxicity of the resulting chemicals is unknown.

As food for your imagination, here are some views of a scant few of the common recognizable plastics that are degraded in forest- and farm-disposed sewage sludge, returning to us in our foods and waters.

What are the decomposition products? Dangerous, yet unknown!

What new chemistries are created, and how toxic are they? Wholly unknown!

Safety/Toxicology studies of these newly created chemicals have never been performed by anyone, for no reason greater than they would not know what to study. The decomposition products and their toxicities remain obscure.

We will study toxins in sewage sludge that may induce toxin-tolerant fungi to produce new antimicrobial agents.

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About This Project

The Precautionary Group

We've discovered a few new mushrooms thriving in this harsh environment of land-disposed sewage sludge in Snoqualmie, Washington. We're testing these mushrooms for new antimicrobial properties. Microbes that survive exposure to toxic sewage sludge engage adaptive mechanisms that transform toxins into secondary metabolites.

Blast off!

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