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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Rachel Salvidge

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

Biosolid fertiliser made from sewage at a farm in Essex.
Biosolid fertiliser made from sewage at a farm in Essex. Photograph: Justin Kase zfivez/Alamy

More than 750,000 tonnes of liquid from landfills are mixed with sewage at water treatment works and spread on farmland across England each year, it can be revealed.

Generated by hundreds of landfills across the country, leachate – the liquid that drains through landfill waste carrying a cocktail of chemicals – is regularly tankered to sewage treatment works, where it mixes with domestic sewage and industrial effluent to create sludge, also described as “biosolids”.

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