REUSE OF SLUDGE IN CROPLAND: REVIEW ON ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Abstract

Digested sludge is a suitable nitrogen supply for plants. However, heavy metals, metalloids, chemical compounds, parasites, and pharmaceuticals can be contained, dependent on the raw material that may cause harmful effects on growing crops and infect the groundwater, soils, and food chain. The goal of this study is to concentrate on the possible hazards involved with the use of digested sludge as fertiliser in cropland for plant growth, soil, and groundwater and, ultimately, the food chain and ecosystem of inorganic and organic pollutants. Inorganic compounds, like metals and metalloids, may sometimes cause soil microbial biomass to decrease in sludge.In general, it does not appear that the ingestion of metals and organic pollutants poses a major risk to plants and the amounts do not reach the maximum values permitted in the soil. To a large degree, organic compounds, toxic to human health or the ecosystem, are decomposed or volatilized from the sludge-treated ground that limits their leakage into the environment. Most organic compounds are lipophilic and may be attached to organic matter in the soil.In summary, the use of sludge on farmland can be a safe method of management; nevertheless, further studies are required to establish the aggregation and persistence in the atmosphere of potential dangerous emerging chemicals and pathogens and the development of inorganic and organic compound components of unsafe intermediate reactions.