Its Name Is Mud, So Sludge Gets A New One

It worked for Marion Morrison and Norma Jean Baker - better known as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe - so maybe it'll work for sludge.

Are you ready for . . . Biosolids?

Frustrated by opposition to using sludge on farms and forests, Metro employee Peter Machno launched a nationwide contest last year to come up with a new name for the end product of sewage-treatment plants. Sludge had, well, some negative connotations, Machno said.

Although professionals insist it can safely be put to use as a fertilizer, there are lingering concerns about heavy metals in sludge.

Machno's call for a new name with a more positive image inspired waste-water professionals to submit hundreds of suggestions such as Black Gold, Humanure, All Growth, Purenutri and Bioslurp.

"My sense is a lot of people working in the sludge business have been thinking about this for a long time," said Machno.

The winning name was submitted by Bruce Logan, a waste-water-treatment professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

The name Biosolids reflects the fact that what settles out of treatment plants has been biologically engineered into a new substance, he says. Biosolids is used to refer to treated material; sludge is still used to refer to untreated solids.

The name has been adopted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and last week the Wastewater Environment Federation, an international professional organization, agreed to use and promote the word.

But its future in the vernacular is less assured, says William Lutz, a Rutgers University professor who edits the Doublespeak Quarterly Review.

"Does it still stink?" he asks.

Actually, it doesn't, or shouldn't, because it is so highly treated, say the experts.

As for the new name, Lutz said, "With a professional organization behind it, it will survive, but it probably won't move into general usage. It's obviously coming from an engineering mentality.

"It does have one great virtue, though. You think of Biosolids and your mind goes blank."