Comparative criteria: Land application of sewage sludge and ocean disposal of dredged material

That societal perceptions differ between use of the land and the ocean is exemplified by environmental regulations in the United States that allow much higher levels of chemical contamination in sewage sludge to be used on land than in dredged material to be dumped at sea. Criteria for sewage sludge acceptability for land application are bulk chemical concentrations. Criteria for acceptability of dredged material for disposal at sea focus upon biological testing for toxicity and bioaccumulation. The result is that sludge applied to land can have much higher levels of contamination than are commonly found even in sediments deemed unacceptable for disposal-at-sea. The inconsistencies between these criteria suggest re-evaluations of both.