A New York Times blog reports, Alice Waters, a pioneering chef and the matriarch of the sustainable food movement, has become an unlikely target in a battle being waged by food activists in San Francisco over a city program that converts sewage sludge into gardening compost. Several nonprofit groups want the city to stop distributing its biosolids compost ...because they say it can contain potentially harmful substances like heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, and flame retardants and should not be used on gardens and agricultural land.
Ms. Waters is being criticized for not caving in to their party line and instead calling for an actual investigation into the science behind these ridiculous charges, says ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross. Meanwhile, the program has been halted, to everyone s detriment. The attitude of these groups is, Do what we say without thinking about it, or we will get you.
I have to admit to some schadenfreude when the organic, environmentalist crowd turns on itself, says Stier. Ms. Waters was a hero of the sustainable food movement, but now they are turning on her because of very low levels of heavy metals in this compost, less even than you d get from a vitamin supplement. The irony, of course, is that using biosolids is a wonderfully environmentalist thing to do, since it safely recycles waste materials; the environmentalists are on the wrong side of this environmental issue.
