Welcome to the wonderful world of toxic sludge-I mean biosolids-where everything is good for you, nothing smells, and companies are 100% honest....not

Toxic Sludge Is Good For You:
Chapter 8:
1. The treatment of sewage works just like the GDP. “The more advanced the treatment of sewage (the more successful the separation), the more sludge will be produced, and the worse—the more unusable and dangerous—it will be. That is, the ‘better’ the treatment, the greater the range of incompatible materials that will have been concentrated in this highly entropic gray jelly.” It’s sort of the same with the GDP, the worse of an event that happens, the better our GDP does. The idea of progress and better are completely skewed.

2. The methods for getting rid of this toxic sludge include incineration, dumping into landfills, gasification, plant fertilizers, and ocean dumping. None of these ways are any better than the others; they are all horrible. But what amazes me is humans complete and utter disregard for all aspects of the planet. It’s bad enough that we are ruining the part of the planet that we inhabit, but then we have to go and ruin the ocean. I’m not saying that humans own the land, but the ocean is nowhere even close to being ours to ruin. We don’t live in the ocean, the effects of our actions really wont have any real dire impact on us for quite some time. It appalls and scares me to think that our beautiful oceans could become like the fake, toxic waves with the fake sand and fake wind of FEED. The ocean is one of the last untouched fronts on the planet, we should probably leave it that way. We’re like King Midas, except everything we touch turns to sludge, not gold.

3. Also, I love how everyone thinks that by changing an organizations name, they can some how change the chemical compounds of whatever they happen to be promoting or producing. No, juts by calling it biosolids, or humanure, or nutricake or whatever doesn’t mean its going to be any less toxic. You could call it happy rainbow juice, but it would still cause all sorts of diseases and congenital birth defects and all other problems. And then they say that they aren’t trying t hide anything… So why exactly are you changing the name? Oh right, to correct the misconceptions about toxic sludge, sorry biosolids. But let them answer this, have they actually gone and smelled it? If they did, I’m pretty sure there’d be no denying that it stuck to the high heavens. And they say that it’s safe and doesn’t hurt humans, well, I don’t see them having it pop up in their backyards like with the Love Canal incident and have no problem with it. I feel like I say this in almost every blog post but WHER ARE THESE PEOPLE’S MORAL COMPASSES?!?!?!?! This shit is hurting people, and children, and babies, and animals and their great-great grandchildren’s environment!!! How blind can you be?? I mean really? The studies are inconclusive…Yeah right, that’s just another way of saying yeah this stuff is pretty much horrible and will probably kill lots of people but on my short time on this earth I just want to make lots of money, so if some people die in the process of me making bank, oh well, such is life. These people are psychopaths and sociopaths in disguise!! And they are practically running our country!!! AHHH!!

4. Also, that forty-page report put out by the EPA with the ridiculously long title (made that long and unnecessary to deter people from ever wanting to read it in the first place) is sheer crap! “It warns that there is an ‘irrational component’ to the public’s attitude toward sludge, including the widely-held notion that sludge smells bad: ‘It is difficult to say to what extent odors emanating from sludge may be imagined.” Who are they calling irrational?!?!?! My goodness. And I thought EPA stood for Environmental Protection Agency…Protection…Environmental PROtection…Agency… Just making that clear. But apparently the EPA likes to side with the people who have literally no sense of smell and thus cannot smell the ensuing death they are creating.

5. I also find it quite disturbing that Rick Jarman from the NFPA thinks that “consumers don’t need to know whether their food has been grown in sludge.” I beg to differ. What is this, poisoning the people, and then taking away their right to knowledge, to know where their food comes from? How demeaning can we be? It begs the question, if there is nothing wrong with the sludge than why is it such a big deal if people know where their food comes from (sludge field or not) ?

My Question is, why do these companies insist on continuing to destroy people and the environment? The people that work at these companies are people, individuals with what I hope are beating hearts. How can they justify these actions, and things that they are saying? I just don’t understand.

Chapter 9:
1. I find it so frustrating that companies can change their name or have a name that does not represent what the company actually does. For example, the Global Climate Coalition, which you would think would be all for helping the environment…Wrong…The Global Climate Coalition actually “opposes environmental action to prevent global warming.” Who knew? And apparently “in the perverse world of corporate public relations, propagandizing and lobbying against the environmental protection is called environmental, or green PR.” Now that just makes no sense whatsoever. Way to be blatantly sneaky. (side note, PR should stand for professional liar, not public relations…just saying.)

2. “Obviously business leaders are a minority whose opinions run contrary to the mainstream of American thought, but they are able to determine government policy thanks to carefully planned long term strategy.” This just does not seem right. Last I checked, it was majority rules, not minority who happens to have way more money than everybody else. This system is hugely flawed. It makes it so much easier for bad decisions to be made, because they profit the big guys up top more. A lot of things in this country seem to be set up that way. I’m starting to wonder if it was somehow created this way on purpose. The interconnectedness of all this corruption just seems way too commonplace to just be coincidence.

3. It’s also really disturbing to hear about the making of Earth Day a corporate commodity. Companies will stop at nothing to make a quick buck. To put it simply, its gross. And then on top of corporatizing the day designated to preserving the earth (even though you should do that every day) they let any old company be a part even if they are polluting the environment like there is no tomorrow. I’m not blaming the people at all, but its time the vast majority of us stop being such suckers for the words green and eco- whatever. We need to start seeing through the smoke and mirrors to what’s really going on behind the scenes. And we also need to stop letting companies stick their noses into every aspect of life. Earth day a corporate commodity, well apparently the fat lady has sung and pigs are flying because companies have corporatized saving the earth that they are simultaneously destroying. That’s talent…

4. And then the companies have the audacity to pin all the blame on the consumer, as if they had nothing to do with it, oh please. I agree that people can help solve the problem by changing their habits…But in no way it this entirely or mostly the consumers fault. The companies are the ones who are making the products and the pollution etc… etc… and the laundry list of offenses could continue for days. But how can they possibly make such an accusation. Okay, so say everybody changed their habits and started to save the world…Companies would go bananas, their profits would plummet and there would be a lot of business people running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to restore their beloved virtue of blind consumerism into the public eye. It would fare them much better if they changed their companies so people would appreciate the actual real environmental steps they are making (not just changing names) and people wouldn’t have to boycott them and send them down the tubes.

5. “We feel that whenever any environmental group tells lies that have an economic harm against anybody, that is a civil tort, and under US law they should be vigorously prosecuted in civil court.” Oh yeah, but when some company tells lies that have an environmental harm, they can’t do the same? Instead the companies will pull some strings, dish out a few bucks here and there and the prosecution will get nowhere. How do they not see the disconnect here? Do they think people are going to hear the things they are saying and nod their heads in newfound agreement?? Yeah, not so much. The whole system just baffles me.

My question is what will generations to come think of today’s situation? What will they think as they learn about all of this in history class? Will all of this be skewed in the textbooks by the company writing them? Will anything ever be truth if companies are allowed to just lie and lie and lie and suffer no serious repercussions? How will history judge us??




Group Blog Post 1:

Group Members: Torie Sanders
Concept: Our PSA will be centered around the idea of body image and the environment and how the two are inversely related. As people improve their body image through the use of cosmetics, the environment suffers due to all the plastics that end up in landfills and chemicals used to make the products. But the reality of it is that people are beautiful before cosmetics…and so is the environment.