Effect of sewage sludges contaminated with polybrominated diphenylethers on agricultural soils.

Toxic metals in sewage sludge-amended soils: has promotion of beneficial use discounted the risks?

Land application of contaminated waste products has been defended as beneficial use by some scientists and regulators, based on the premise that the behavior of any toxins accumulated in soils from this practice is reasonably well understood and will not have detrimental agronomic or environmental impacts into the foreseeable future. In this review, I use the case of toxic metals in sewage slud...

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers and polybrominated biphenyls in Australian sewage sludge.

This paper presents a brief review of the international scientific literature of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) in sewage sludge and a survey of these compounds in sewage sludge from 16 Australian wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The SigmaPBDE mean concentration in the Australian study was 1137microgkg(-1) dry weight (d.w.) (s.d. 1116) and ranged ...

Influence of pH and industrial activity on total zinc concentrations in agricultural soils, sewage sludges, and beach sands: relationship with plant (Saccharum officinarum) availability.

Effect of Sludge Amendment on Remediation of Metal Contaminated Soils

Column-leaching and pilot-scale experiments were conducted to evaluate the use of biosolids (sewage sludges) to control the mobilization of metals from contaminated soils with smelting slags. The pilot-scale experiments using amended soils showed that Cu, Pb and Sb were retained, decreasing their concentrations from 250 g/L, 80 g/L and 6 g/L, respectively in the leachates of contaminated soi...

Absorption and translocation of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) by plants from contaminated sewage sludge.

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are used as additive flame retardants. PBDEs are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic compounds. They are often detected in sewage sludge which is applied on agricultural soils as fertilizer. The objective of this study was to find out whether plants are able to accumulate and translocate PBDEs. Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) and nightshade (Solanum nigrum) ...