Removal of sewage sludge to agricultural areas in the Netherlands, 1981-2000
Only a limited proportion of sewage sludge from industrial wastewater treatment plants is still used as fertiliser and/or for soil improvement.
| Nutrients | Metals | |||||||||
| nitrogen | phosphorus | cadmium | chromium | copper | mercury | lead | nickel | zinc | arsenic | |
| as N | as P2O5 | |||||||||
| million kg | 1 000 kg | |||||||||
| 1981 | 3,6 | 3,8 | 0,4 | 10 | 34 | 0,2 | 23 | 2,9 | 106 | 0,4 |
| 1990 | 4,6 | 4,4 | 0,2 | 4,0 | 31 | 0,1 | 14 | 2,0 | 74 | 0,5 |
| 1995 1) | 1,5 | 1,0 | 0,02 | 0,5 | 1,4 | 0 | 0,4 | 0,3 | 4 | 0,1 |
| 1999 1) | 0,9 | 0,7 | 0,06 | 0,5 | 1,1 | 0 | 0,3 | 0,2 | 4 | 0,1 |
| 2000 1) | 1,5 | 1,3 | 0,02 | 0,6 | 1,3 | 0 | 0,5 | 0,3 | 5 | 0,1 |
| 2001 1) | 1,4 | 0,8 | 0,02 | 0,5 | 1,1 | 0 | 0,3 | 0,3 | 4 | 0,1 |
| Source: CBS. | CBS/EDC/May03/0155 | |||||||||
| 1) Only sludge from IWWTPs. | ||||||||||
Policy
On 1 January 1995 the removal of sludge from UWWTPs to agricultural areas was ended following the introduction of the second phase standards of the 'BOOM' decree on the quality and use of other organic fertilisers (LNV/VROM, 1991, 1998, 2001). Only a limited proportion of clean sludge from industrial wastewater treatment plants (IWWTPs) is still used as fertiliser and/or for soil improvement (anti-dust mixture). For details of the quantity of dry matter in the sewage sludge removed,
