Nutri-Green

Nutri-Green is a Virginia Beach, VA product sold as compost but made from sewage sludge. Hundreds of communities across the U.S. sell toxic sludge products that are typically renamed biosolids and sold or given away as "fertilizer" or "compost" (and often even labeled or marketed as "natural" or "organic"). Nutri-Green is marketed as a "natural soil conditioner." It is sold in bulk and in 40-pound bags at garden centers. Nutri-Green is marketed for use on lawns, flower beds, vegetable gardens, ornamental trees and shrubs, and in potting soil.

According to one website:


 * "Two biosolids product are marketed under the Nutri-Green name by the Hampton Roads Sanitary District in Virginia Beach, Virginia. One product is a biosolids compost which has a marketing program that is focused on retail outlets, trade shows and coops. The sanitary district also provides anaerobically-digested biosolids to local agriculture. This program has more than 7,000 private farmland acres enrolled in it. Only 1,000 to 1,500 acres are applied each year."

Currently, Nutri-Green is made at the McGill Environmental Systems facility "at its privately run composting center outside of Waverly in Sussex County," according to an April 2011 Virginian-Pilot article. However, the Hampton Roads Sanitation District wishes to begin producing its own Nutri-Green sewage sludge compost, given that the McGill facility is 60 miles away from the sanitation districts' sewage treatment plants. The agency has proposed a $45 million composting center.

Contact Information

 * Hampton Roads Sanitation District
 * 1436 Air Rail Avenue
 * Virginia Beach, Va 23455
 * Phone: 757-460-4276 or 757-460-2261
 * Web: http://www.hrsd.com/nutrigreen.htm
 * Email: rbowen@hrsd.com

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Biosolids
 * Sewage sludge
 * Food Rights Network
 * Sewage sludge giveaways, producers, and brands
 * The EPA's plan to bypass opposition to sewage sludge disposal
 * Water Environment Federation
 * You say biosolids, I say sewage sludge

External resources

 * Marie Kulick, Smart Guide on Sludge Use and Food Production, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, 2008.
 * Targeted National Sewage Sludge Survey: EPA-822-R-08-016 and EPA-822-R-08-018, EPA, January 2009.
 * Environmental Working Group, Dumping Sewage Sludge On Organic Farms? Why USDA Should Just Say No, April, 1998.
 * Environmental Working Group, Routes of Exposure sewage sludge: EWG Research on Chemicals in sewage sludge, April 30, 1998.

External articles
Scott Harper, Hampton Roads Sanitation District plans $45M compost center, The Virginian-Pilot, April 19, 2011. Article accessed April 19, 2011.