Archives – March, 2010
It is happening on April Fool’s Day, but it is no joke. The Organic Consumers Association, upon whose Advisory Board I serve, is picketing chef Alice Waters’ world famous Chez Panisse Restaurant, Cafe and Foundation offices in Berkeley, California, over the noon hour on April 1, 2010. The protest is a direct result of the growing controversy in the Bay Area where the City of San Francisco, through its Public Utilities Commission, has been giving away and selling thousands of tons a year of toxic sewage sludge to be put on farms and gardens. The nasty entropic stuff, filled with a potential stew of thousands of chemicals and microbes, has even been bagged by the PUC as “organic compost” and used by unsuspecting victims who would never have intentionally put sewage sludge on their home or school gardens.
Continue March 31, 2010
Fifteen years ago, the Center for Media and Democracy in my book Toxic Sludge Is Good for You first exposed the deceptive PR campaign by the municipal sewage industry that has renamed toxic sewage sludge as “biosolids” to be spread on farms and gardens. Unfortunately, the scam continues to fool more people than ever, even in San Francisco which is often dubbed the country’s greenest city.
Continue March 16, 2010
Mother Nature Network | One group says the city’s free compost is processed sewage sludge — the product of anything flushed, poured or dumped into the wastewater system. San Francisco wears its environmental consciousness like a green badge of honor. Residents separate and recycle their food scraps. Streets close to cars so people can walk and bike them. A city department even gives away “high-quality, nutrient-rich, organic bio-solids compost” to any and all takers.
Continue March 8, 2010
AlterNet.org | When San Francisco, one of the greenest cities in America, offered its residents free compost, many were excited to take it. Few of the gardeners who lined up to receive the free compost at events like last September’s Big Blue Bucket Eco-Fair suspected that the 20 tons of free bags labeled “organic biosolids compost” actually contained sewage sludge from nine California counties. On Thursday, March 4, angry San Franciscans returned the toxic sludge to the city, dumping it at Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office in protest.
Continue March 5, 2010
