District officials promote the truckloads of sludge-based compost they donate to community gardens in low-income, predominantly Black neighborhoods and the piles they leave outside sewage treatment plants for anyone to shovel into buckets or pickup beds. Those same officials have repeatedly failed to tell the public what they’ve known for more than a decade: Every scoop of sludge is contaminated with toxic forever chemicals linked to cancer and other maladies, a Chicago Tribune investigation has found.
And the covid-19 virus. That sludge is infected with that too. The sludge dries in the fields, and it’s blown through the air in dust articles, allegedly.
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
And the covid-19 virus. That sludge is infected with that too. The sludge dries in the fields, and it’s blown through the air in dust articles, allegedly.