Hazardous Waste
Sewage treatment plants receive all types of hazardous waste from hospitals, nursing homes, industry and households. Every household in the United States is authorized to discharge up to 220 pounds of hazardous waste per month to the sewage treatment plant legally without reporting it. This is the equivalent to a household disposing 2 gallons of mercury down the drain, per month. At the waste water treatment plant, most of this metal would be separated from the water and concentrated into sludge. Mercury is well documented to have profound detrimental effect to human health as MSDS sheets show. Due to the lax regulations, hazardous waste, once passed through a sewage treatment plant, is determined as non-hazardous sewage sludge.
Read more about this topic: Sludge
Famous quotes containing the words hazardous and/or waste:
“Falling in love with a United States Senator is a splendid ordeal. One is nestled snugly into the bosom of power but also placed squarely in the hazardous path of exposure.”
—Barbara Howar (b. 1934)
“If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)