Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Recycle Poop

First of all what are Biosolids? They are basically organic waste by-products from agricultural production or sewage treatment plants that are spread on farm fields as a fertilizer.
Biosolids have actually been in use in UK and European agriculture for more than 80 years. But there is increasing pressure to stop the practice of land application. In the 1990s there was pressure in some European countries to ban the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer. Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, and others introduced a ban





It may sound funny but humans produce a lot of waste - by - product. Adult humans produce 1-2 liters of urine a day; if you live to be 70 that’s around 10,000 gallons. Each of us also produces 13 gallons of feces annually. 



Some Pros - cheap                                                                   Cons - might be unhealthy                 
          recyclable                                                                            Unknown origin 
          improves fertility of soil                                                         odor    

While biosolids have long been an integral component to the recycling industry, most folks tend to think of recycling in terms of bottles, aluminum cans or newspapers. Biosolids, which are derived from human sewage, is a topic most would rather just flush and forget. But biosolid management is a necessity and biosolid recycling is the environmentally preferred alternative.


Comments
Erica write  

I tried to comment on Brians page would not work so my comment is here :
You bring up many points that I hadn't thought about, such as the fact that humans are pretty much products of pollution. Also, that it's up to the farmers to get their fertilizer from a trusted source, and that the health of the consumers is at stake.

 
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1 comment:

  1. Hey Albert! Thanks for the additional history regarding the use of biosolids -- I really hadn't been aware of that. It's actually surprising to me that they want to ban the practice of using biosolids for agricultural purposes. I mean, manure has been a generally accepted form of fertilizer for centuries, so what's the big deal with human feces? From my research, I didn't find anything about there being negative implications on the food sources either. What I did find was that the use of biosolids could lead to contamination of our water sources, but that to me seemed like a problem that was just as prevalent in other forms of fertilizing. I personally am 100% for biosolids as it seems to be an environmental way of agriculture that takes advantage of existing resources -- not to mention the results of biosolid-grown food have proven to be great!

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