As the VBC carries out its mission to enrich soil health and increase farm productivity and sustainability one begins to understand that every day our members endeavor to improve the earth. The wastewater treatment cycle is a 365-day commitment each year. And this is a special year, leap year, where our commitment extends to 366 days. This Earth Day is special too, with a theme of Planet vs. Plastics.
Plastics are truly everywhere. There is more weight of plastics in our oceans than fish. It seems I heard of ocean dumping about another product, sound familiar?
New terms will become part of our vernacular: bisphenols, phthalates, and of course micro-, meso- and macro plastics. Re-examination of PET, HDPE, PVC, LDPE, PP, PS, and other – or if you prefer recycling numbers 1 through 7. Single use plastics lasting mere moments on product shelves but capable of floating for centuries on our oceans.
Our focus on plastics is the theme this year for Earth Day but will join something that has been around since the Part 503 standards were adopted. The National Academy of Sciences raised it, and the Office of the Inspector General repeated it: “persistent uncertainty” in biosolids.
This Earth Day our focus will change to plastics but our commitment, our passion must not waver all the 366 days to enrich the earth around us one farm, forest, landscape, lawn and garden at a time.
John Uzupis
President, Virginia Biosolids Council