Feces, urine, vomit, blood. Synthetic hormones, heart pills, antibiotics, illicit drugs, Viagra. Bacteria, viruses, E. coli, parasites. Household cleaners, shampoo, solvents, pesticides and traces of arsenic, mercury, cadmium, lead, dioxins and flame retardants. Each day, this chemical cocktail is piped from our homes, businesses and industries to sewage plants across the province. The water is filtered and reclaimed. The solid waste that remains is turned into biosolids, more commonly called sludge. For more than 30 years, Ontario’s sludge has been trucked out to farmland for use as fertilizer.

And so begins a rather interesting article on said sludge.