Public Attitudes and Risk Perceptions of Biosolids Resource Recovery

Contact: Dr. Gunilla Oberg

This interdisciplinary project is currently ongoing in collaboration with a team of biologists at Thompson Rivers University. This is a mixed-methodological study conducted in the BC Southern Interior (Kamloops, Merritt and Princeton, BC) examining residents’ attitudes and risk perceptions surrounding the resource recovery and land application of biosolids in their community for the purposes of mining land reclamation, food crop production, ranchland fertilization or nutrient feedstock in landscape soils. Biosolid opposition is no longer considered merely a product of public misunderstanding, but a result of differing values, expectations and responses to issues of regional waste management, resource recycling and broader conservation and sustainability goals and this research seeks to better understand this.