every day our country must find a place
to park five billion gallons of human
waste and we appear increasingly unable
to find a space municipalities across
the states constantly deal with sewage
spills and the nightmare is only getting
worse
as a never-ending stream of people to
send upon our cities more human beings
means more human fecal matter when
Hurricane sandy shut down six New York
City sewage plants millions of gallons
of raw sewage spewed across the streets
imagine New York City inundated in its
own fecal matter in a matter of hours
America's biggest metropolis would be a
ghost town this is the dark deep secret
of New York City nobody wants to talk
about it and you wake up in the morning
and you turn on a fortune to brush your
teeth everybody's happy
where it goes from there nobody cares
and standing on a lot of aren't
dying you are there's 3 million gallons
of organic material in each of the eggs
you're about to see quite like the
of a million people seething into one
gigantic methane fart
here we go Vinny
New York City home to eight million
people and 22 million more who visit and
live close by
all of whom wake up get out of bed brush
their teeth and flush the toilet our
assignment was to look into something
nobody wants to talk about we had to
follow human fecal matter from the flush
all the way through the sewage system to
its final resting spot wherever that
might be
we used to dump our crap in our nation's
oceans rivers lakes and bays but now
that's against the law so what happens
to this massive volume of turds this is
a story about where that goes who
takes the what happens to this
after that and why in all likelihood you
have unknowingly been eating byproducts
of your own for years every day 24
million pounds of human excrement flow
through thousands of miles of pipes to
14 so-called wastewater treatment plants
to start our investigation we visited
the largest of New York City sewage
treatment plants which happens to be
within walking distance of Isis Brooklyn
offices we're here in Newtown Creek New
York City's largest solid waste facility
because you think when you flush the
toilet it goes away it does not it comes
here we met up with a Deputy
Commissioner of New York City's
Department of Environmental Protection
Vincent Sapienza and plant chief eric
CLE to show us the system Newtown Creek
is one of the newest and most advanced
solid waste treatment plants in the
world completed in 2012 at the cost of
four billion dollars it is won awards
for its beauty and architecture there's
a lot of hardware and technology around
here and we couldn't believe how many
people have to deal with what we don't
want to deal with the main job at
Newtown Creek is to separate the water
from biological waste but before that
these guys have to remove all the junk
that comes through the sewers and this
is where the raw sewage first comes into
load look there it is
if you look all the way down you can
smell it oh and look you see right here
I can see some toilet paper
there is lamented some used use toilet
paper over there that the rake has
brought up step back a little units wet
now you're gonna get a splash the rake
pulls up everything you might expect
like aluminum cans Hospital red bag
waste oil spills blood vomit and lots of
baby wipes
they have also brought up quite a few
vials of cocaine and countless millions
of counterfeit money one waste
professional told us off-camera that
they found aborted fetuses and even live
dogs like it looks like there's a big
rock over here like grease that's grease
that's like a big chunk of grease it's a
lot bigger than that like you see huge
chunks what's the biggest chunk of
grease he ever saw
this is why you're always told not to
dump cooking oil into your sink it turns
into this seal that er buys the rakes
take out the big stuff in this room
removes the small stuff like bottle tops
and bubble gum wrappers does not smell
good here how much do you spend just an
air filter about a hundred thousand just
for this plant under grand for air
filters at yeah you need some more in
here Eric and Vinny have been working in
human residuals for a long time all of
this stuff they say the rake the air
filters the computers the pipes and the
tanks are here for a reason
to remove the poison from New York City
sludge so this is it this is the treated
sewage now leaving the plants it's going
out of this overflow structure down a
pipe that runs down India Street and
into the East River so this goes
straight to the East River how long did
this water tank to go from my flush back
to the street I thought it was more like
two out a high rate flow it's a high
rate flow two hours on other I slow wash
I flush it hits this plant and two hours
later that water is back on the street
now that Newtown Creek has removed the
garbage and discarded the water what
we're left with is pure sludge which now
must be thoroughly vetted and examined
and that involves PhDs in poop chemistry
you know it makes you think twice when
you drink the water because it's a
closed system yes what you start to
realize that water like it's been around
a couple of times oh hello what you got
there let's see oh my god so you're
walking around carrying little vials of
that's nice yes I'm actually gonna
go take a look at it now see what's in
it
what are these scientists doing why is
it so important to study what we don't
want to look at turns out the
Environmental Protection Agency always
looking after us needs to know about
possible hazards in our eliminations
federal regulations govern sludge so
more than 60 scientists work in this
building they inspect everything that's
in the sludge including traces of Prozac
caffeine and Chanel number five keep in
mind that mixed within the stew of
Newtown Creek comes every effluent of
cancer patients at hospitals every sort
of industrial poison everything that
goes down every single drain so we're
looking for is what comes out of our
bodies is is kind of poisonous it's what
we're looking to do is neutralize it
right later so let me ask you a question
what you're seeing here is they some of
these come from Red Hook yeah and you
can know specifically where they're
coming from yeah they're all labels
basically when we receive the sample we
composite so are some of these like some
of these parts of Brooklyn worse than
others like his Red Hook let's say
worse than Greenpoint like what's
the worst would be sometimes it's depend
on that's what we give them all there's
two desserts which one is bad which one
is good which one is which one is
generally bad who wears the worst stuff
coming from the woods which one which
one smells me which one is it all the
worse somebody somebody from is it the
Red Hook guys as Park Slope every step
and with each inspection our waste is
transforming into something other than
what it was
everyone is now referring to it as
biosolids it was around this time that
we really started to wonder where it was
going so the water is now clean and in
the East River the scientists had their
samples of concentrated bio solids what
we wanted to know where do the tons and
tons of human waste go here we are at
the top of the top of the park I'm
standing on a lot of aren't I you
are there's 3 million gallons of organic
material in each of the eggs so this is
a pressure relief valve that if too much
pressure from gas builds up in the
digesters that can just open on its own
and relieve itself but I'm gonna open it
for you just so you can get a sense of
what it sounds like it smells this is it
man you're about to see what like the
of a million people seething into
one gigantic methane fart here we go
Vinny what do you think Jackson Oh God
we wanted to see what it takes to get
rid of our fecal x' and we found out
they travel a lot farther than we
thought
you