REVIEW PAPER
Environmental Safety Assessment
of Fertilizer Products
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Central Mining Institute, Department of Water Protection, Katowice, Poland
Submission date: 2020-03-09
Final revision date: 2020-04-14
Acceptance date: 2020-04-14
Online publication date: 2020-07-31
Publication date: 2020-10-05
Corresponding author
Piotr Zawadzki
Department of Water Protection, Central Mining Institute, Plac Gwarków 1, 40-166, Katowice, Poland
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2021;30(1):11-22
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ABSTRACT
The danger posed by sewage sludges, although subjected to various treatment processes, contributes
to the fact that fertilizers introduced into the soil pose a sanitary and ecological threat. Minimizing the
risk of using fertilizers produced from sewage sludges is possible due to legal regulations, the most
important of which are the Act of 26 July 2000 on fertilizers and fertilization and numerous regulations
of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. Due to the fact that some parameters such as
pharmaceutical substances have not been included in legal regulations, comprehensive researches
on the impact of fertilizers produced from sewage sludges are justified, in particular with regard to
soil, ground and water environment and also on the quality of crops. Taking into account the current
legal regulations and the diverse composition of sewage sludges, full safety analysis including both
biological analyses and risk assessment is necessary to perform. As part of this work, the possibilities
of environmental safety assessment of fertilizer products based on stabilized municipal sewage sludges
are presented. This article presents the most popular methods of sewage sludge safety analysis in the
following environment: leachate, ground and surface waters, soil and plants.