Professor John Robertson OBA

In the Guardian today, the above, and:

Millions of tonnes of treated sewage sludge is spread on farmland across the UK every year despite containing forever chemicals, microplastics and toxic waste, and experts say the outdated current regulations are not fit for purpose.

An investigation by the Guardian and Watershed has identified England’s sludge-spreading hotspots and shown where the practice could be damaging rivers.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/07/millions-of-tonnes-of-toxic-sewage-sludge-spread-on-uk-farmland-every-year

There is, of course, no research into the situation in Scotland, referred to in the above.

Toxic sludge is being spread on Scottish farmland and there are campaigns against the practice here but there is evidence that due to stricter control of the treatment of the sewage before spreading, the level of pollution is lower.

From The application of sewage sludge to agricultural land in Scotland: risks and regulations
A report for Scottish Environment LINK by Thomas Easton published in April 2023:

The recently published UKWIR CIP3 report summarises biosolids data for samples taken from
Scottish Water’s Seafield advanced anaerobic digestion (AD) and Galashiels AD sludge
treatment centres between September 2021 & September 2022. Lower concentrations of
contaminants were found for these Scottish samples compared with biosolid samples from
sludge treatment centres across England and Wales.

https://www.scotlink.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/The-application-of-sewage-sludge-to-agricultural-land-in-Scotland.pdf