Nanotechnology & Health

"“In light of published research, the Obama administration should institute an immediate moratorium on fertilizing with biosolids from sewage treatment plants near nanomaterial fabrication facilities. A moratorium would give researchers time to determine whether nanomaterials in soil can be made safe and to research alternatives to building soil heath, rather than depending on fertilization with biosolids.” says IATP’s Dr. Steve Suppan.

Over time, the report explains, nanomaterials in these agricultural inputs can accumulate and harm soil health. More research is urgently needed to adequately understand possible long-term impacts of nanotechnology.

“As agri-nanotechnology rapidly enters the market, can soil health and everything that depends on it can be sustained without regulation?” asks Suppan. “That’s the question regulators, researchers and anyone involved in our food system should be asking themselves.”

The report also details risks specific to farmers and farmworkers applying dried biosolids that incorporate nanomaterials, including inflammation of the lungs, fibrosis and other toxicological impacts."

"Here we review a small part of the rapidly growing scientific literature that raises questions about how ENMs might affect soil health and soil biodiversity in field trials and subsequently the commercial and chronic application of ENMs in agricultural soil. The questions concern not only the intentional use of ENMs in fertilizers, but the incidental presence of ENMs in “biosolids,” defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as “treated residuals from wastewater treatment that can be used beneficially.”11 Biosolids are often used to fertilize agricultural fields. As a Purdue University researcher recently noted, “Land application of biosolids is standard procedure now [at least in the United States] . . . If any of that [biosolid] contains nanotubes, that could be a problem.”"