WEBVTT

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[Background noise]
[music]

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Cloacina, goddess of the tide whose
sable streams beneath the city glide.

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Those sable streams, long ago we put them out
of sight and out of mind, and so the flow

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of life can go on in this city above.

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Beneath the surface of the every day, is a
hidden world.

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We\'ve created the city inside and out.

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Underground, the city has a
body, not unlike our own.

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We\'ve installed its metal intestines.

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We have forged its molten bowels.

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Like a living entity, the city purges its
wastes, and so hidden down below, our waste

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stream flows.

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What happens when we lift the lid?

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We believe that our waste belongs to no one and
that we can send it away to where we don\'t

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know.

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It\'s a dangerous game we play.

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[water bubbling]
Sewers make sewage all over the world.

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Through its many kilometers of underground
pipe, the sewer collects everything that goes

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down a drain and is flushed away with
water, but where does our sewage go?

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What does it do to us?

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[background noise]
What is a true face of sewage?

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[background noise] Mats of woven
hair, condoms, tampon applicators,

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chicken feet, it\'s all here at the sewage
treatment plant.

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Laura has it at the world\'s largest sewage
treatment plant in Chicago, a motorcycle washed

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up [background noise]

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Down into the sewer, factory runoff.

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Every year, thousands of new synthetic chemicals,
organic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, storm

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overflow, food wastes, human excrement, vomit,
detergents, industrial solvents, petroleum

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products, paints, oils, abattoir wastes, cleansers,
asbestos, radioactive materials, heavy metals,

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dental and hospital wastes, just to name a
few.

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[background noise]
This is what we create with the sewer.

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This is sewage.

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American civil engineer, Laura Orlando, has
looked long and hard at the murky soup coming

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down the pipe.

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Here we are today with, I think it\'s something
like 70% of the United States on sewers, 70%,

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75%, it might even be higher.

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When I\'m thinking about a drain that carries
whatever the material might be and dumps it

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into a pipe and brings it somewhere else,
that\'s sewage to me.

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It becomes something else.

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I think that\'s helped us forget about all
of the dangerous things that can be in that

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pipe.

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We don\'t question the sewer, this established
method of sanitation that has its roots in

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another time in ancient history.

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The sewer was in its glory in ancient Rome.

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It was about a vision of being civilized.

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To have sanitation means to be civilized,
dignified, and ennobled.

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It was in classical Rome that the sewers were
first built on a ground scale over 2500 years

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ago.

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[background noise] Decorated air
events lead to its working bowels.

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Here, the city hints at the malodorous
breath of its underground world.

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Cloacina, she was the Roman goddess of the
sewage.

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Titus Tatius who ruled with Romulus erected
a statue of Cloacina in honor of this, the

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Venus of sewers, the Cloaca Maxima.

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Built in 616 BC, this antique anus of the
empire is still one of the largest operating

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sewers in the world.

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Cloaca Maxima entrenched the engineering technology
that endures to this day; the collection and

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transport of wastes by the use of water.

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Quite simply, the idea of using water to move
our wastes downstream to where we are not.

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To writer historian Carlo Pavia, the ancient
Cloaca Maxima will always reign Supreme in

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historic or modern-day Rome.

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[Italian language]
[water bubbling]

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Ancient Rome at its height purged the wastes
of one man million residents into the Tiber

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River.

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[background noise]
The sewer gave birth to Rome.

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Like the very roots of civilization, the
sewer spread out beneath the empire.

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When Rome declined, the Cloaca gradually
choked and the sewer was no more.

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[music] The dark ages that
followed were ranked with

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human and other wastes mixing in the gutters
and ditches of the medieval street.

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Waterborne diseases like cholera
and typhoid were epidemic.

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After centuries of waiting through our
wastes, the idea of sanitation was reborn.

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In the late 19th century, the industrial revolution
brought about the resurrection of the subterranean

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Roman waterborne model.

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As the sewer spread, it improved the human
condition.

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By the beginning of the 20th century, toilets
were flushing across the industrialized world.

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The sewer had become the accepted standard
of sanitation.

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It was grand scale, greater than Rome could
have imagined.

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With sanitation, our urban
populations could grow.

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Now cities worldwide swept their wastes
away into rivers, lakes, and oceans.

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Consequently, we couldn\'t move our wastes
far enough away anymore.

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Now the waste stream had become a steady
current in our world\'s shrinking waters.

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[background noise] It has been
said the Hindu taught the British

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to bath and the British gave the Hindu the
sewer, and since 1917, raw sewage has been

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channeled into one of the great rivers of
the world, the Ganges.

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Today, the river buckles under the pressure
of the dense population living around it.

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[background noise] Veer Bhadra
Mishra lives in Varanasi, India\'s

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holiest city.

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He\'s a highly revered Hindu
priest and engineer.

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Because of the state of the sacred Ganges,
Mishra has become an expert on sewage pollution.

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His understanding of the river is
both spiritual and scientific.

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The Hindu bath in waters that reach pollution
levels 340,000 times what is considered safe.

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But for a devout Hindu, submersion in the river
is a sacred necessity, and so they celebrate

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their faith in the outfall
of the city\'s sewers.

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[background noise]
The Roman sewer we\'ve inherited has made us

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all fish in Mishra\'s pond.

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It\'s a beautiful harbor, but
it\'s a very dirty harbor.

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It\'s disgusting.

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People come here in the hotel and they look
outside and they say what a beautiful harbor,

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and then they see all these little swirly
things in the water and you have all these

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seagulls around there and they\'re saying,
\"What is that there?

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How come these birds are there?\"

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It\'s embarrassing.

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For the longest time, I would
never tell anybody what it was.

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I tell people what it is now.

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That way, everybody knows what\'s going on
right there.

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All the raw sewage that\'s going out there,
it doesn\'t smell very nice.

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You walk down Water Street on a warm sunny
day and it\'s gross.

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We got 120 million liters of raw untreated
waste that enters the harbor every day.

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If you multiply that by 365 days, you know
we got a pretty busy harbor.

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Right now, we have about 16 feet of crap at
the bottom of the harbor.

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The harbor is like a big bowl.

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A toilet bowl.

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Like a toilet bowl exactly, and the bottom
16 feet of that is just filled with crap,

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but there\'s a huge mound, 20 feet high mound
of crap that\'s just below the outfall.

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It just keeps coming out with solids, of
course, dropping the other stuff drifts away.

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Then it builds to 20 feet and then it collapses
into itself, and then it starts to rebuild

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again.

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This has gone on in five or six different
locations in the harbor.

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Basically, the big thing about this is in
the year 2000, we\'ve come so far and been

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so civilized, how can we be dumping
and living in our own filth?

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We have the facts and we know that the fish
are being diseased.

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Maybe another 20 million liters a day and
that\'s it, it\'s all over, we don\'t know, and

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that\'s happening.

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We\'re getting more and more sewage
going into that harbor every day.

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That fishery could be shut down all the way
around this East Coast here.

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We\'re falling around this, we\'re sitting
here 30 feet from our own crap.

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[background noise]
[music]

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This is what we don\'t see.

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It is out of sight, out of mind.

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80% of Canadian coastal communities
dump their sewage raw.

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Victoria, British Columbia\'s capital, and Nova
Scotia\'s capital, Halifax, released billions

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of liters of raw sewage every year
from outfalls along their coastlines.

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In St. John\'s and everywhere
else, we are persuaded

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that sewage treatment is the answer.

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We place all hope in our sewer technology, and
so in Canada, sewer pipes lead to a treatment

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plant 80% of the time.

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We invest billions of dollars
in sewage treatment.

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It is the crucible in which we expect to purify
toxic sewage, and yet, since the American

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Chemical Revolution of the 1950s, countless
new and unpredictable ingredients are being

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added to the sewage recipe.

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The sewer has become a
superhighway for toxic wastes.

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Every day, a city generates millions of liters
of wastewater that contain untold quantities

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of hazardous components.

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In the treatment process, we attempt to clean
the wastewater and then release these liquids

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back into rivers, lakes, and oceans.

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We call it reclaimed water, but how safe
are these treated liquid effluents?

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Here on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, Dr.
Wayne Fairchild and fellow researchers have

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been tracking the effects of sewage
treatment effluent on the Atlantic salmon.

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Things that we did not think were a problem
in the past, and we\'ve treated literally as

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water going down the sink and not worrying
about it because it was just water, we\'re

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realizing now maybe that\'s not the case.

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A lot of these things are ending up in sewage
treatment plants, and so you\'re consolidating

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a lot of things.

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Some of them may get a clean bill of health,
some may not, but there are certainly many

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products in use right now which we know if
they were exposed to fish in small quantities,

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they\'re going to cause a problem and we\'re using
these things institutionally, industrially.

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We\'re using them in our homes.

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These can all be in
sewage treatment plants.

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The fish basically have to swim a gauntlet of
potential sources of these types of chemicals

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in most of the rivers that they live in just to
the nature of human habitation and settlement.

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When you come down, a lot of these very productive
salmon rivers, what do you have at the end?

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You have a city, possibly a port, industry
associated population, a sewage treatment

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plant or a wastewater treatment plant, all going
in to that final area between the freshwater

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and the ocean where all of the outgoing smolts
have to swim through to get to the ocean.

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So that if you\'re having having low concentrations
of something, you\'ll have a shot at affecting

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the entire population
coming out of that river.

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The problem is these fish were exposed are
now not meeting their potential.

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They\'re smaller fish, they\'re having trouble,
and they are fish that are much less likely

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to survive once they hit the open sea, but
you\'re not going to see that.

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That effect is hidden in the environment.

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In the case of salmon, it\'s hidden completely
because if you lose those fish out at sea,

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they\'re just gone.

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You have no measurement of them at all.

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You don\'t know whether they did well or poorly,
whether they died a month out, or whether

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they died a year later, you
don\'t know, they\'re just gone.

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There\'s a much closer link to things coming
back, things that we put down the drain or

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put out where you seem
to think they\'re gone.

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There\'s actually quite a good link back to
things that are important to us that may end

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up back on our dinner table.

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[music] Around our inland
lakes and rivers, industry

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and sewage treatment
plants lying the shore.

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Treatment plant effluents contain a whole
host of chemicals that may pass through the

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most advanced treatment process unscathed.

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The serious pollution comes
in parts per trillion.

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Pharmaceutical compounds and Canada\'s effluents are
among the highest in the modern industrialized

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world.

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It raises the question, if these contaminants
are harming the fish we eat and are in the

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water we drink, what effects
are they having on us?

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[music]
Waste reform advocate, Abby Rockefeller, is

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concerned about the radical disconnection
between us and our wastes.

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In her view, we don\'t understand the consequences
of mixing our wastes together in the sewer.

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The fact that the consequences are not immediately
connectable, in that sense, invisible to anybody\'s

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behavior, they don\'t see it immediately, they
don\'t see the trouble immediately, that it

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makes it extremely easy for people to go on
with their behavior and not thinking and the

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entire culture, everything, the educational
system, the industrial system, all the systems,

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the government all encourage people not to
think.

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[background noise]
We inherit these technologies and there\'s

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choices that were made that people who are
using the systems didn\'t make about how to

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deal with their excreta and there are laws
that tell them they must do it this way.

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That was poor thinking, this bad thinking all
along the line at every point in the treatment

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idea, in the concept of what waste is.

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The principle of mixing, but that\'s the key
mistake it seemed to be, the idea that we

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think we can mix it all together and then
separate it.

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The sewage treatment process separates the
liquids from the solids into reclaimed water

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and sludge.

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Every year, sewage treatment plants produce
millions of tons of sludge that is settled

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out from sewage wastewater.

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In North America, we have many names for sludge;
solid waste, sewage compost, Nutra cake, black

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gold, or biosolids.

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The name we use depends on what we do with the
sludge, but for Laura Orlando, it is what

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it is.

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It was considered a hazardous waste for a
very long time until the part five of three

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rules were written and it was recast as a
beneficial nonhazardous substance.

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Sewage treatment was never meant to clean,
it was never meant to purify, it was never

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meant to result in products that were safe and
beneficial and somehow sanitize and chemical-free

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that could then be reintegrated
into the nutrient cycles.

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Never started out that way and nor
is it possible to make it that way.

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We end up in the treatment process with a very
dangerous material that most, unfortunately,

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we are now putting into life
cycles, putting on land.

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We want to reuse the nutrients in our human
and food wastes.

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The treatment process, however, does not succeed
in eliminating the pathogens in human waste.

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We also know that sludge contains an
unknown and vast array of chemical wastes.

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The pressure is on to dispose of sludge.

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Whatever it\'s made of,
it has to go somewhere.

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Almost half of the sludge
produced is applied to farmland.

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In many cases, it is free of charge to the
farmer.

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It is touted as a soil conditioner, but no
one really knows what\'s in it.

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Several forms of wastes find their way onto
our productive farmland under the guise of

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fertilizer.

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Among them, pulp and papers sludges, raw
septic waste, as well as sewage sludge.

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Not long after moving to rural Ontario, Maureen
Reilly experienced the situation firsthand.

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Forced into activism, she now pioneers the
anti sludge movement in Canada.

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I found out that they were planning on putting
5,000 tons of paper mill sludge residue all

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in these fields where the cattle graze all
around the house in all three sides, and I

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thought, \"I\'ve never heard of such a thing
that they would take industrial waste and

00:26:28.850 --> 00:26:31.999
just put it on the top of pastureland.\"

00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:36.129
I didn\'t think that the chemicals that would
be in that waste would be good for the cattle,

00:26:36.130 --> 00:26:40.709
and certainly, didn\'t think anyone would want
to come to a bed and breakfast where there

00:26:40.710 --> 00:26:42.549
was industrial waste around the house.

00:26:42.550 --> 00:26:45.399
I started to ask some questions.

00:26:45.400 --> 00:26:49.869
I made some phone calls and I didn\'t like
the answers I was getting.

00:26:49.870 --> 00:26:52.609
People were very evasive.

00:26:52.610 --> 00:26:56.379
The Ministry of Agriculture didn\'t want to
talk about it.

00:26:56.380 --> 00:27:02.959
There were a lot of very dodgy answers around
what the chemicals and the sled would be.

00:27:02.960 --> 00:27:10.960
It\'s a combination of chemicals, heavy metals,
materials that may be contaminated and maybe

00:27:12.510 --> 00:27:15.399
dangerous or may not be.

00:27:15.400 --> 00:27:19.599
The problem is no one\'s testing that before
they bring it out to the countryside.

00:27:19.600 --> 00:27:24.269
The farmer doesn\'t know what\'s in that
truck and maybe there is no farmer.

00:27:24.270 --> 00:27:29.379
Maybe the waste hauler owns that field and
then no one\'s really looking.

00:27:29.380 --> 00:27:35.009
It was really though when I\'d ask them questions
and then the waste hauler came knocking on

00:27:35.010 --> 00:27:42.139
my door here after dark one night to tell me
really what would happen to me if I didn\'t

00:27:42.140 --> 00:27:49.489
stop asking questions that I really knew that the
management of these waste out in the countryside

00:27:49.490 --> 00:27:53.549
were quite out of control.

00:27:53.550 --> 00:27:59.199
Maureen Reilly was contacted by a local farm
family subject to a different form of sewage

00:27:59.200 --> 00:28:00.599
waste disposal.

00:28:00.600 --> 00:28:08.600
Each year, hundreds of millions of liters
of raw untreated, untested septage is being

00:28:08.760 --> 00:28:12.269
deposited on farmland.

00:28:12.270 --> 00:28:20.270
Septage is human and household wastes
pumped from individual septic tanks.

00:28:22.570 --> 00:28:27.539
Farmers Terri Boadway and her husband Tim
find themselves at the mercy of the growing

00:28:27.540 --> 00:28:32.789
drive to dispose of sewage waste
on productive Canadian farmland.

00:28:32.790 --> 00:28:36.859
Their neighbor receives raw septic waste.

00:28:36.860 --> 00:28:41.589
People can\'t comprehend that sewage waste
is being dumped on farmland.

00:28:41.590 --> 00:28:47.269
You drive past these farms, you would never
imagine that.

00:28:47.270 --> 00:28:53.129
Neighbors aren\'t notified when they\'re
going to be dumping sewage on land.

00:28:53.130 --> 00:28:56.699
We didn\'t know that this
was going to be happening.

00:28:56.700 --> 00:29:01.469
They don\'t make anyone around the
area aware of what\'s happening.

00:29:01.470 --> 00:29:02.659
All year he\'s here.

00:29:02.660 --> 00:29:06.308
It doesn\'t matter whether it\'s raining, it
doesn\'t matter whether it\'s snowing, it doesn\'t

00:29:06.309 --> 00:29:09.429
matter what, he comes in and he dumps.

00:29:09.430 --> 00:29:11.469
How often does he come?

00:29:11.470 --> 00:29:16.569
Anywhere from once to four or five times a
day.

00:29:16.570 --> 00:29:17.570
Times a day.

00:29:17.571 --> 00:29:21.409
Yes, and they\'ve told me at the ministry,
this is what I say to them, I say, \"You know

00:29:21.410 --> 00:29:22.410
what?

00:29:22.411 --> 00:29:26.669
He\'s been here and he comes in at least
once a day up to five times a day.\"

00:29:26.670 --> 00:29:32.299
I\'m questioning where is it coming from and
no one will answer me.

00:29:32.300 --> 00:29:34.629
This has been going on how long.

00:29:34.630 --> 00:29:36.999
Two years, a little over two years.

00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:42.209
The gentleman who lives across from us over
here, you would have gone past his house on

00:29:42.210 --> 00:29:49.069
your way over, he had his water tested and
it\'s come back contaminated with E.

00:29:49.070 --> 00:29:55.579
Coli contamination.

00:29:55.580 --> 00:29:58.939
Sewage contamination is what it said.

00:29:58.940 --> 00:30:03.009
In the neighborhood fields, Maureen Reilly
takes a closer look.

00:30:03.010 --> 00:30:07.649
There look, there\'s...
Yes, there’s plastic.

00:30:07.650 --> 00:30:09.979
A compost package.

00:30:09.980 --> 00:30:12.789
There\'s a possibility that
they could be growing.

00:30:12.790 --> 00:30:18.308
They could grow crops for human consumption
on this field.

00:30:18.309 --> 00:30:22.139
I don\'t think I\'d want to eat
vegetables grown on here.

00:30:22.140 --> 00:30:30.140
We don\'t know what was in those pumps outs,
what kind of toxic cleaning fluids and it

00:30:31.410 --> 00:30:34.829
could be almost anything.

00:30:34.830 --> 00:30:42.830
Do you know that the waste industry wants
to come out and put their industrial ways

00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:46.019
on these fields?

00:30:46.020 --> 00:30:49.009
That\'s surprising, but it\'s
sort of understandable.

00:30:49.010 --> 00:30:54.058
I think the real shock is when you find out
that the government isn\'t going to help you

00:30:54.059 --> 00:31:00.139
and that the government is not only not helping
you, is only not prepared to deal with it

00:31:00.140 --> 00:31:05.789
environmentally, but that they
actually thwart the public\'s concerns.

00:31:05.790 --> 00:31:11.839
That\'s where the real sense of
shock and betrayal comes from.

00:31:11.840 --> 00:31:19.199
It says a lot about our culture to think that
we would even take the gamble to ruin our

00:31:19.200 --> 00:31:26.529
productive agricultural soil by putting a
material that we, at best, I say we know a

00:31:26.530 --> 00:31:27.530
lot about.

00:31:27.531 --> 00:31:34.259
We know that it causes great harm, but even
if there are doubts about it, why put it on

00:31:34.260 --> 00:31:35.579
the soil?

00:31:35.580 --> 00:31:40.539
Across the industrialized world, the need
to dispose of sludge and sewage waste takes

00:31:40.540 --> 00:31:43.749
precedence over public safety.

00:31:43.750 --> 00:31:47.229
The experience in Sweden brings home what
this gamble means.

00:31:47.230 --> 00:31:53.589
There, they have made a direct connection
between sewage sludge and public health.

00:31:53.590 --> 00:31:59.629
Gunnar Lindgren knows all too well the forces
that prevent Maureen Reilly\'s concerns from

00:31:59.630 --> 00:32:00.798
being redressed.

00:32:00.799 --> 00:32:06.689
Here is a strong voice of the successful
anti-sludge movement in Sweden.

00:32:06.690 --> 00:32:10.489
Yes, it\'s a huge problem.

00:32:10.490 --> 00:32:15.399
If you have built a sewage plant, you will
get sludge.

00:32:15.400 --> 00:32:23.400
You get it 24 hours a day and you have to
get rid of it in any way you know.

00:32:24.630 --> 00:32:29.428
It\'s a depressing situation
for all the counties.

00:32:29.429 --> 00:32:37.099
When you\'re spreading sludge on the acres,
the level of metals they are increasing very

00:32:37.100 --> 00:32:41.999
rapid and the authorities know that, but they
have to accept it because they want to get

00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:43.349
rid of the sludge.

00:32:43.350 --> 00:32:51.350
Sooner or later, you will come to a limit
when you see severe problems.

00:32:52.410 --> 00:33:00.410
One could be that the copper, that\'s the copper
metal, comes to a level where it is a poison

00:33:00.809 --> 00:33:06.298
for the soils and the organism in the soil.

00:33:06.299 --> 00:33:11.928
That means that you can\'t have agriculture
any longer on these acres.

00:33:11.929 --> 00:33:19.019
Remember, it\'s forever to the end of this
planet, you can\'t help it because metal, you

00:33:19.020 --> 00:33:21.259
can\'t remove it from the acres.

00:33:21.260 --> 00:33:28.539
You can also find that whatever damage it
causes; cancer, infections, or whatever, the

00:33:28.540 --> 00:33:35.199
authorities say that we have to accept it
because we need to get rid of it.

00:33:35.200 --> 00:33:42.939
They make a discussion called risk-benefit
analysis and that means that even if there

00:33:42.940 --> 00:33:46.289
are risks, we need to get rid of it.

00:33:46.290 --> 00:33:52.549
In many countries, it\'s no use to come to
arguments with a dead body and say, \"This

00:33:52.550 --> 00:33:55.119
was killed of sludge.\"

00:33:55.120 --> 00:34:00.058
The authorities will say people are killed
in traffic or whatever.

00:34:00.059 --> 00:34:04.559
We need to get rid of the
sludge, that\'s the main thing.

00:34:04.560 --> 00:34:10.138
At his home on the Baltic, Swedish engineer
Carl Lindstrom describes how the sludge story

00:34:10.139 --> 00:34:15.209
unfolded and came to ahead for the Swedes.

00:34:15.210 --> 00:34:23.210
The policy was very much pro-sludge spreading
and I think there wasn\'t much alternatives.

00:34:25.580 --> 00:34:31.469
You could burn sludge and create air pollution
which wasn\'t much better or you could dump

00:34:31.470 --> 00:34:38.679
it in the ocean and that was obviously
stopped too for good reasons.

00:34:38.680 --> 00:34:46.680
Then there was a particular event where they
found flame retardants in the sludge which

00:34:51.889 --> 00:34:59.889
came from both small and big treatment plants,
and that was associated with cancer, a special

00:35:00.690 --> 00:35:02.319
kind of cancer.

00:35:02.320 --> 00:35:05.889
Non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

00:35:05.890 --> 00:35:13.309
Eminent Swedish oncologist, Lennart Hardell
We picked out this disease because very much

00:35:13.310 --> 00:35:19.369
of our research has been on Non-Hodgkins lymphoma,
which is some kind of lymph node disease which

00:35:19.370 --> 00:35:21.139
is malignant.

00:35:21.140 --> 00:35:26.319
Then we knew about the brominated flame retardants
that they are quite similar as PCB, so we

00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:33.618
had a suspicion that we could probably find
brominated flame retardants in our cancer

00:35:33.619 --> 00:35:37.529
patients too, which was actually the case.

00:35:37.530 --> 00:35:43.599
Then the research team up in Umeå where the
environmental chemists work who do this type

00:35:43.600 --> 00:35:45.409
of analysis for us.

00:35:45.410 --> 00:35:52.909
They went on to analyze food, and we did find
that there were brominated flame retardants

00:35:52.910 --> 00:35:55.169
in different types of food.

00:35:55.170 --> 00:35:59.359
The concentration in
mother\'s milk is increasing.

00:35:59.360 --> 00:36:05.839
We have historical batches in Sweden from
early 1970s, and at that time, there were

00:36:05.840 --> 00:36:11.689
very low concentrations, and now, the curve
is going straight up, and the concentration

00:36:11.690 --> 00:36:16.358
is doubling every six years in mothers\'
milk of brominated flame retardants.

00:36:16.359 --> 00:36:21.179
We also pointed to the fact that this was
found in human beings, this is found in food,

00:36:21.180 --> 00:36:27.529
this is probably a cancer risk, and this can
also be found in the sewage sludges which

00:36:27.530 --> 00:36:33.599
is spread over the farmland.

00:36:33.600 --> 00:36:41.600
We questioned if this really should be done in
the future and we discussed the probability

00:36:44.020 --> 00:36:50.608
that it could go into the food
chain through the sludge.

00:36:50.609 --> 00:36:55.059
Public reaction to these findings was
strong enough to influence food producers.

00:36:55.060 --> 00:37:01.189
The Swedish National Farmers Association put a ban
on spreading of sludge on Swedish agricultural

00:37:01.190 --> 00:37:02.989
land.

00:37:02.990 --> 00:37:09.899
This was not government legislated, but driven
by the sheer economic power of the consumer.

00:37:09.900 --> 00:37:14.839
In the short term, the Swedes are landfilling
their sludge in non-critical areas such as

00:37:14.840 --> 00:37:17.469
motorways.

00:37:17.470 --> 00:37:22.099
Both the Netherlands and Belgium have long
since banned spreading sewage sludge on their

00:37:22.100 --> 00:37:28.849
agricultural land because of concerns
of chemical uptake into the food chain.

00:37:28.850 --> 00:37:33.789
In Canada, a sludge sample taken from Toronto\'s
Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant

00:37:33.790 --> 00:37:41.790
reveals higher levels of bromine flame
retardants than those found in European sludge.

00:37:42.190 --> 00:37:47.049
When you find chemicals such as these flame
retardants, you know that that is just the

00:37:47.050 --> 00:37:52.689
tip of the iceberg because there are so many
things that they\'re not looking for at the

00:37:52.690 --> 00:37:53.959
present time.

00:37:53.960 --> 00:37:56.899
You can call it a mirror.

00:37:56.900 --> 00:38:02.069
If you have poison somewhere in an industry,
you will have the poison in the sludge.

00:38:02.070 --> 00:38:09.759
If you are using color for your hair, you
will have it in the sludge, and so on.

00:38:09.760 --> 00:38:14.669
It\'s a basket of all the bad things.

00:38:14.670 --> 00:38:22.479
If you say that broccoli is a healthy vegetable,
the next question is, of course, where is

00:38:22.480 --> 00:38:25.609
that broccoli coming from?

00:38:25.610 --> 00:38:28.929
What is it grown on?

00:38:28.930 --> 00:38:36.930
You can see that broccoli grown on one soil
can be very good for you and if it contains

00:38:38.070 --> 00:38:42.209
heavy metals, it can be very bad for you.

00:38:42.210 --> 00:38:49.608
I think by focusing attention on what we eat,
you have to go deeper and deeper into the

00:38:49.609 --> 00:38:53.649
question of what is actually in that food.

00:38:53.650 --> 00:38:59.589
[background noise] Welcome to Edmonton\'s
$100 million state-of-the-art

00:38:59.590 --> 00:39:01.159
waste facility.

00:39:01.160 --> 00:39:07.849
[background noise] In sharp contrast
to the anti-sludge movement

00:39:07.850 --> 00:39:13.529
in parts of Europe, here in Canada, we seem to
be fanning the flames of the sludge problems.

00:39:13.530 --> 00:39:20.089
We\'ve embraced the idea of cool composting,
wherein two big sitting weights dilemmas are

00:39:20.090 --> 00:39:28.059
seemingly solved by mixing municipal
garbage and sewage sludge.

00:39:28.060 --> 00:39:34.539
[background noise]
These waste materials undergo a digestive

00:39:34.540 --> 00:39:42.540
process and are packaged as Nutri Plus, a compost
promoted for home gardens and agricultural

00:39:44.490 --> 00:39:46.409
use.

00:39:46.410 --> 00:39:54.410
They listed the nutrient ingredients on their
mixed waste product, but not the toxins, nor

00:39:54.790 --> 00:39:56.618
the heavy metals.

00:39:56.619 --> 00:40:01.749
Currently, the city of Edmonton no longer
markets this co-compost product under the

00:40:01.750 --> 00:40:07.749
name of Nutri Plus, but continues to sell it
as a compost enhanced topsoil to the public

00:40:07.750 --> 00:40:12.939
and to agricultural markets.

00:40:12.940 --> 00:40:18.559
Edmonton\'s co-composting facility is viewed as
highly progressive by other Canadian cities.

00:40:18.560 --> 00:40:23.949
I guess I would say that people are in an
alienated condition.

00:40:23.950 --> 00:40:26.089
They don\'t feel what\'s the problem.

00:40:26.090 --> 00:40:30.789
It\'s not getting to their consciousness that
there\'s trouble being caused with what they

00:40:30.790 --> 00:40:32.479
do.

00:40:32.480 --> 00:40:37.329
That\'s very serious that it is okay
with people that it\'s out of sight.

00:40:37.330 --> 00:40:45.330
They don\'t wonder what has happened, what
did it do.

00:40:48.859 --> 00:40:56.439
[background noise]
In Bear River, Nova Scotia, the residents

00:40:56.440 --> 00:41:03.779
have voted for a different approach;
a solar aquatic treatment system.

00:41:03.780 --> 00:41:11.780
It is placed the end of the sewer pipe into
the center of town and into the mind of the

00:41:12.119 --> 00:41:13.119
community.

00:41:13.120 --> 00:41:17.439
It may not be a solution to our sewage wars,
but it has made the town think about what

00:41:17.440 --> 00:41:20.789
is happening to their water.

00:41:20.790 --> 00:41:24.399
You can end up using water with impunity.

00:41:24.400 --> 00:41:26.159
People just don\'t.

00:41:26.160 --> 00:41:32.459
It\'s never in people\'s mindset what happens
to the water, what they do with it.

00:41:32.460 --> 00:41:36.289
Most treatment plants have a big mechanical
bar screen and they\'re constantly pulling

00:41:36.290 --> 00:41:41.309
off anything here, condoms, et cetera, that
people just flush down their toilets.

00:41:41.310 --> 00:41:46.719
Here, where everyone come down and walk through
the system and they identify with their sewage

00:41:46.720 --> 00:41:50.329
now and they call it our sewage treatment
plant.

00:41:50.330 --> 00:41:52.959
That stuff just doesn\'t happen anymore.

00:41:52.960 --> 00:41:54.409
People don\'t flush stuff down the toilets.

00:41:54.410 --> 00:41:57.519
In the winter time, there\'s nothing when
it\'s just the local residents there.

00:41:57.520 --> 00:42:00.389
She never has to clean the bar screen.

00:42:00.390 --> 00:42:06.489
It the tourists haven\'t been fully educated
yet, so they still do it, but they\'ve looked

00:42:06.490 --> 00:42:10.299
down and they say, \"That\'s where it goes?

00:42:10.300 --> 00:42:13.279
That\'s what happens when I flush it down to
toilet?

00:42:13.280 --> 00:42:14.280
Oh.\"

00:42:14.281 --> 00:42:20.179
It\'s made it too easy almost for people to
get rid of their sewage.

00:42:20.180 --> 00:42:28.180
I really like the idea of having it in your
face that this is your sewage, it\'s in your

00:42:29.340 --> 00:42:34.368
face, you have to deal with it, deal with
your own stuff.

00:42:34.369 --> 00:42:39.439
No matter what kind of sewage treatment system
we use to clean up after ourselves, the problem

00:42:39.440 --> 00:42:42.309
continues to be the same.

00:42:42.310 --> 00:42:47.608
It is our daily habitual use of all sorts of
chemicals in our homes, in our industries,

00:42:47.609 --> 00:42:54.779
and institutions that find their way to the
drain.

00:42:54.780 --> 00:43:02.780
[background noise] The laborers
that help me run this plant are

00:43:03.590 --> 00:43:05.639
spiders, praying mantis,
snails, and bacteria.

00:43:05.640 --> 00:43:06.999
All those things help.

00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:09.999
Everything in here is biological.

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:16.489
It\'s either composted, recycled, or eaten.

00:43:16.490 --> 00:43:22.199
[background noise]
I\'ve had high school teachers actually make

00:43:22.200 --> 00:43:25.889
their biology and chemistry students write
exams on this place.

00:43:25.890 --> 00:43:29.169
I\'ve taken them through here and then four
other sewage treatment plants.

00:43:29.170 --> 00:43:34.589
They get an overview that there are different
methods and it gives kids an idea that when

00:43:34.590 --> 00:43:40.259
they\'re just home at their house and the laundry\'s
going and somebody\'s doing dishes and somebody

00:43:40.260 --> 00:43:42.629
else is flushing the toilet, that it just
doesn\'t disappear.

00:43:42.630 --> 00:43:45.539
Somebody has to deal with it down the line.

00:43:45.540 --> 00:43:46.540
What happens?

00:43:46.541 --> 00:43:52.239
It goes out, in our case, into the river, which
feeds into the bay or into a small basin,

00:43:52.240 --> 00:43:56.098
which feeds into the Bay of Fundy, and the
Bay of Fundy is one of the most important

00:43:56.099 --> 00:43:58.429
bays that this world has to offer.

00:43:58.430 --> 00:44:02.419
The highest tides in the world and some of
the most incredible sea light that you\'re

00:44:02.420 --> 00:44:03.420
ever going to see.

00:44:03.421 --> 00:44:07.219
You can\'t just afford to flush chemicals or
paint thinner down the toilet and say it\'s

00:44:07.220 --> 00:44:14.868
gone, it\'s not gone.

00:44:14.869 --> 00:44:19.829
Abby Rockefeller believes we should choose the
services, the products, and the chemicals

00:44:19.830 --> 00:44:26.219
that become a part of our wastes.

00:44:26.220 --> 00:44:31.629
She calls for a change in public policy, and
ultimately, for a revolution of the system

00:44:31.630 --> 00:44:32.630
itself.

00:44:32.631 --> 00:44:40.631
It\'s thought to be the peak of rational the way
this all works, that you can put everything

00:44:43.430 --> 00:44:45.589
down a couple of strains.

00:44:45.590 --> 00:44:53.590
It is the peak of irrational, of non-life
connected behavior, so there needs to be a

00:44:55.640 --> 00:45:03.009
policy change away from the mixing of wastes
and the using of water to carry wastes.

00:45:03.010 --> 00:45:07.499
Water simply shouldn\'t be used as
the vehicle to carry any waste.

00:45:07.500 --> 00:45:13.429
The reason I started with working with composting
toilets, with the Clivus Multrum in particular,

00:45:13.430 --> 00:45:21.430
was to get a real-life live thing, so to speak,
out there in the world for people to see.

00:45:22.150 --> 00:45:25.229
The composting toilet is
not a new technology.

00:45:25.230 --> 00:45:29.389
It has been out there for some time quietly
waiting to be noticed.

00:45:29.390 --> 00:45:36.119
The virtues of the composting toilet
or ecological toilet are many.

00:45:36.120 --> 00:45:39.209
First and foremost, it doesn\'t use water.

00:45:39.210 --> 00:45:45.829
Also, in economic terms, 90% of our presence
sewer system costs lie in the transport of

00:45:45.830 --> 00:45:53.830
our waste, in the sewering
of our communities.

00:45:55.140 --> 00:46:00.889
The odors from fresh material go down the
shoot, so the bathroom never smells when it\'s

00:46:00.890 --> 00:46:02.219
in use.

00:46:02.220 --> 00:46:06.259
That\'s actually something hard to describe,
you really have to live with it to know the

00:46:06.260 --> 00:46:08.769
great benefits of that.

00:46:08.770 --> 00:46:13.479
The journey for these wastes leads
to a composter in the basement.

00:46:13.480 --> 00:46:16.919
This is the clean out end of this compost
chamber.

00:46:16.920 --> 00:46:24.149
This is a Clivus Multrum type
composter, one of the early versions.

00:46:24.150 --> 00:46:28.629
What we\'re looking at here is the finished
compost and the liquid.

00:46:28.630 --> 00:46:33.199
This is the place where you take out both
the liquid product and the compost product.

00:46:33.200 --> 00:46:37.259
It has been in here for anywhere from 3 to
10 years.

00:46:37.260 --> 00:46:41.629
The compost part has the liquid, it comes
through more quickly and is stored in that

00:46:41.630 --> 00:46:44.199
central chamber over there.

00:46:44.200 --> 00:46:48.699
The principle of this whole idea is that the
urine gets to travel through the bottom of

00:46:48.700 --> 00:46:56.700
the oldest materials, really like soil and
it is transformed and becomes odorless by

00:46:56.810 --> 00:46:58.509
the time it gets here.

00:46:58.510 --> 00:47:05.399
Then the solids are transformed by the composting
process, bacteria, and other small creatures.

00:47:05.400 --> 00:47:09.899
What comes through here is like the soil.

00:47:09.900 --> 00:47:17.799
What can live in the old compost is essentially
the microbial and other life that can live

00:47:17.800 --> 00:47:19.848
in oil.

00:47:19.849 --> 00:47:22.179
All food waste goes in this
as well, so that\'s why.

00:47:22.180 --> 00:47:23.839
I didn\'t explain that before.

00:47:23.840 --> 00:47:30.389
It takes all the kitchen wastes, including
paper towels that we use to clean up with

00:47:30.390 --> 00:47:37.129
and fat and bones and really everything from
the kitchen so that we don\'t put any food

00:47:37.130 --> 00:47:39.069
waste in the trash.

00:47:39.070 --> 00:47:42.929
That makes it much easier to deal with the
trash, I can say that.

00:47:42.930 --> 00:47:49.389
This partition here, that is very important,
that\'s what is the reason for our sticking

00:47:49.390 --> 00:47:54.499
with the big size of this one, that the size
makes it possible for these materials to be

00:47:54.500 --> 00:47:55.919
in here for a long time.

00:47:55.920 --> 00:47:59.409
That\'s what makes it possible for them to
be safe from a health point of view for the

00:47:59.410 --> 00:48:00.539
handling of them.

00:48:00.540 --> 00:48:03.749
You can see that there are earthworms.

00:48:03.750 --> 00:48:09.229
There are some earth worms pulling back in
there, and it smells like garden soil, the

00:48:09.230 --> 00:48:11.389
best kind of garden soil.

00:48:11.390 --> 00:48:14.789
Can it smell it?

00:48:14.790 --> 00:48:15.790
Yes.

00:48:15.791 --> 00:48:19.899
Yes, it smells great, actually.

00:48:19.900 --> 00:48:21.609
It\'s good.

00:48:21.610 --> 00:48:22.869
I would say that\'s soil.

00:48:22.870 --> 00:48:29.149
That is soil and the smell is an extremely
good indication of the level of breakdown.

00:48:29.150 --> 00:48:37.150
It\'s a very good indicator that
it has advanced to a safe stage.

00:48:37.210 --> 00:48:45.210
The more we look at our wastes, the more
firmly the answers will be fixed in our minds.

00:48:45.480 --> 00:48:52.189
As we continue building and rebuilding our
world, as our vision of civilization evolves,

00:48:52.190 --> 00:48:57.699
there are achievable ways in which we can direct
our efforts towards sustainable sanitation

00:48:57.700 --> 00:49:01.279
systems.

00:49:01.280 --> 00:49:04.629
Let\'s stop sewering up new communities.

00:49:04.630 --> 00:49:10.469
There\'s no reason why we can\'t have communities
that are not attached to sewer pipes.

00:49:10.470 --> 00:49:16.829
When we sewer up a new community, we\'re really
inviting industry to use the sewers as a way

00:49:16.830 --> 00:49:19.779
to get rid of their toxic waste.

00:49:19.780 --> 00:49:26.229
It\'s invisible, every drain and grate and
toilet and sink become an avenue for toxic

00:49:26.230 --> 00:49:30.999
waste disposal.

00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:36.209
The sewer issue because that\'s
just an immense problem.

00:49:36.210 --> 00:49:37.879
To lay sewers?

00:49:37.880 --> 00:49:41.179
What a monumental,
unspeakably difficult task.

00:49:41.180 --> 00:49:47.149
To lay sewers to gravity feed from all over the
place under the ground, it\'s a impossibly,

00:49:47.150 --> 00:49:54.329
it seems, intricate task, and it was done, but
backing off it isn\'t impossible and backing

00:49:54.330 --> 00:49:58.319
off it is what we must
do one of these days.

00:49:58.320 --> 00:50:04.009
[bell rings] Industrial waste, that has to
be a tight loop.

00:50:04.010 --> 00:50:11.979
Every industry should recycle, in one way or
another, its own wastes, and if they can\'t

00:50:11.980 --> 00:50:14.419
do it, you can\'t produce those things.

00:50:14.420 --> 00:50:19.029
That\'s what the policy should be, that you
can only produce something whose materials

00:50:19.030 --> 00:50:20.920
can stay in an industrial loop.

00:50:20.921 --> 00:50:27.309
If it\'s not your loop, it\'s another industry\'s
loop, but stay in the industrial loop.

00:50:27.310 --> 00:50:35.310
That\'s just obvious, but it\'s a huge policy
change, but it\'s something life requires.

00:50:40.099 --> 00:50:48.099
[music]
You can\'t solve the problem by technology,

00:50:51.300 --> 00:50:59.300
you can only solve it by a change of social
behavior, and we are not there.

00:50:59.910 --> 00:51:05.669
People are still hoping that somebody else,
some engineer or whatever they should take

00:51:05.670 --> 00:51:08.839
care of it but not myself.

00:51:08.840 --> 00:51:16.840
I\'m waiting for a new generation, it will
come, it must come.

00:52:26.990 --> 00:52:34.990
[music]
[foreign language]