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Sewage Sludge

Map No. 306

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Sewege sludge is domestic and sometimes industrial waste which goes into a public sewerage system. If there is no public sewage collecting system, no sewage sludge is recorded - thus Africa, much of Asia and South America are small on this map.

The United Nations Environment Programme (2005) notes that whilst sewage sludge can be a useful fertiliser, its environmental dangers include possible presence of heavy metals, organic compounds and pathogens.

The most sewage sludge produced per person is in Luxembourg, mainly because this city state has no room for cesspits.

"... a sharp water oxygen decline is caused by sewage, and this sewage contains substances requiring lots of oxygen for the biochemical oxidation process. This ... is killing fish en masse" Oleksandr Poliakov, 2005

Territory size shows the proportion of all sewage sludge that goes into a public sewerage system, that is collected there. No sewerage system means no sewage sludge.

• Open PDF poster, designed for printing. You need Acrobat Reader.
• View labelled territory map or population map for comparison
• Data files: Excel (large with map), Excel (small no map), Opendoc format (see notes)
• Technical notes for this data.
• High Resolution image (see copyright conditions)
• All of the data we use is estimated; see data page