Thousands of tonnes of toxic landfill liquid added to sewage and spread on English farms | Farming

More than 750,000 tonnes of discharges are mixed with wastewater with water treatment and propagate on agricultural land across England each year, it can be revealed.

Generated by hundreds of discharges across the country, the leachate – the liquid which is drained through discharge waste bearing a cocktail of chemicals – is regularly tanker with wastewater treatment work, where it mixes with domestic wastewater and industrial effluents to create sludge, also described as “biosolids”.

The process produces treated liquid, unloaded in rivers and seas, and solid sludge, sold by water companies to farmers as fertilizer. But many toxic chemicals escape treatment, finding themselves in the waterways or accumulating on fields. Currently, all the rivers of England do not meet legal standards for chemical pollution.

The analysis by Guardian and Watershed surveys shows that around 3.5 million tonnes of leachate are generated each year, with more than 750,000 tonnes sent to sewer work unable to treat chemicals found in leachate such as “chemicals forever”, some of which are carcinogenic, as well as PCB, dioxins, delayers, resolvents Endocrines, microphasins and modern, modern, solutions, endocrine disorders, microfines and modern and linen, moderns, modern, links and links and binds. chemicals.

“Some of this waste simply should not go to wastewater treatment work – it is essentially a form of money laundering,” said an environmental agency source that did not want to be appointed. “You lose the leachate in a larger material to dilute it and disperse it.”

The judicial scientist and experts of the PFAS, Dave Megson, said that he was “surprised that it happens”, having assumed that it was “only a relatively minor practice” under strict controls.

“It seems that the entire system is out of control,” he said, saying that most sewer factories have been designed for human waste, not chemical effluents, and that the addition of large lescent volumes could “disturb the efficiency of processing sites” and make them less effective.

The source of EA said: “What you really need is an initial treatment center … The level of treatment is simply not there at most. PFA and similar chemicals pass immediately.”

The analysis revealed that around 1.7 million tonnes of leachate received only basic biological treatment. Of the 750,000 tonnes sent to Water Company Works and mixed with wastewater, around 536,000 tonnes were treated in this way. The volumes add a constraint to the plants already overloaded, contributing to the spills of raw wastewater in the rivers and the seas.

Megson said that his “main concern is the toxic chemical charge … going through these sites and then directly in our food chain”. He said that discharge leviats “may contain thousands of toxic chemicals. They were buried for a reason … We do not want them in our wider environment. ”

Instead of being “reconditioned in fertilizers”, many chemicals have survived, have been “refocused in sludge and applied directly to our food,” he added, calling

The situation “a series of absurd events” requiring urgent intervention.

While the leachate of certain inert discharges can be harmless, others contain a toxic chemical mixture. Operators are only basic surveillance, without routine tests for PFAs and many other pollutants. The leachate checks when it comes to wastewater treatment work is minimal, and the sludge is always tested only for heavy metals according to the obsolete rules of 1989, leaving most of the non -regulated contaminants.

The leachate and the sludge are locked in a cycle. It is sent to sewer factories as the cheapest elimination option – water companies are paid to take it and profit by selling the resulting sludge to farmers. Farmers accept it as inexpensive fertilizers; While the water sector is counting on them because there are few alternatives.

Dependence is so anchored that farmers have once threatened a “sludge strike” on the successions tax, although it has never been materialized. A source from EA said that the sewer’s leaflet cup during the night would trigger an “absolute crisis”, overwhelming specialized treatment facilities and force government intervention.

“Whatever the policy that the government chooses to adopt, there will be an impact somewhere,” they said. “It is a question of trying to find a way to cross this, which does not deny the fact that there are environmental damage caused now.”

Historical and closed discharges are an important problem because they generate leachate for decades, the oldest were directly liciting themselves in the environment. Operators are supposed to reserve follow -up funds during the life of a site, but these pots are often limited. If the elimination costs increase – for example, if waste should be diverted to costly dangerous treatment factories – funds could run out, leaving “orphaned sites” without managing long -term management.

The figures reveal a regional imbalance striking in the amount of leachate generated. The southwest landfills declared 1,264,563 tonnes, followed from the northwest to 719,405 tonnes and from the southeast (excluding London) with 500,835 tonnes.

The work of Severn Trent Water and United Utilities treats the most authorized leachate, according to the analysis, with 447,000 and 156,000 tonnes reported in 2023. Wessex Water (103 203), South Water (36,806), North Water (16,484), South West Water (6,884).

The Source of the Environment Agency said that certain factories have accepted the leachate without the necessary permits, which means that sludge volumes probably exceed official figures: “There was a degree of conceived ignorance – some companies closed their eyes and waited for us to come to them.” The agency now writes standard rules permits for liquid tank waste, but does not have the resources to quickly align all the sites.

The efforts are complicated by the five -year investment cycles of water companies, supervised by Ofwat. Even if ministers demanded stricter treatment standards tomorrow, water companies would not have the right technology in place for years.

A Water UK spokesperson said that companies “treat waste in accordance with the rules established by the government and the Environment Agency … who specify the type and level of residual chemicals” to be removed. But they called for the ban on “chemicals forever like the PFAS”, supported by a national elimination plan and a “producer permission program”, so manufacturers finance cleaning and catering.

The Environment Agency recognized that if a leachate was pre -treated before entering the sewer system, some were directly released or tankled in sewer work, as well as other industrial effluents and domestic wastewater. A spokesperson said that he “worked closely with the discharge industry and water companies to better understand the challenges that these chemicals have … including examining all the provisions of tank waste to wastewater treatment to guarantee that the conditions of license protect the environment and are met.”

Georgia Elliott-Smith of the Fighting Dirty campaign group said: “The fate of toxic liquids suining old discharge sites is a huge dirty secret between landfill owners, EA and water companies.” She said that if, as the group suspected, the authorities failed in their duty to protect health and the environment, the group would pursue high court measures “to force them to do the right thing.”

The feeling is taken up by Dr. Dan Drage of the University of Birmingham, who said that much more strict upstream regulations were necessary to ensure that new chemicals were cautious before mass production. Too often, he said, chemicals were only marketed for “their damage potential” emerges later, leaving “complex and almost incomprehensible cleaning work”.

The leachate, said Drage, contained persistent and toxic substances which, when sent to wastewater factories, were “effectively re -elevated” in the environment, risking contamination of sailors and agriculture and chronic exposure by food and drinks.