Hebelschule Schliengen

Our teacher Mr. Kirsch reported us the problem of materials and substances which end up in sewage works and subsequently are released to the river (like Rhine river) or on fields, due to the sludge being spread out by farmers. This sludge consists to a certain extent of plastic and cotton fibers. Once these fibers are on the fields & flowers, bees are collecting them as a by-product during their duty of honey production and subsequently the fibers end up in honey. If the fibers are released to the river, they can be taken up by fish (who erroneously recognize them as food) and may die agonized accordingly. We were wondering where the fibers are coming from and came to the hypothesis that the fibers are washed out of clothing in every normal procedure in the washing machine released from housework (like liquid waste from laundry rooms, being flushed unrevised to the canalization). These fibers can only partly be filtered out by the sewage works and hence, they end up as described above. Our goal was to get more information about the degree of the situation being a real issue (if we really have to be concerned about what is going on) and if so, to get a technical approach / solution in place to reduce or remove the issue.