A new campaign group, whose founders include the environmental activist and columnist George Monbiot, is taking the UK government to court over its failure to properly regulate the use of sewage sludge, which is used as fertiliser on farmland.

The campaign is underpinned by the details of a once-secret Environment Agency report, obtained by an Unearthed investigation in 2020, which found that sewage waste destined for English crops was contaminated with microplastics, bacteria, and “persistent organic pollutants” like dioxins, fuerans, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at “levels that may present a risk to human health”.