Thread: Peak Phospherous?

Originally Posted by Commodore

Third, why don't we use humanure?

By the time it comes out of the waste water plant it's called 'sludge' and around here you used to be able to get all you wanted for free. Haul it away.

Now I understand they charge for it.

Now through treatment they kill all the harmful bacteria normal human waste has... those living in the gut and expelled. And this also kills most anything that is picked up along the way.

The problem is (or would be) separating out all the other crap (pun intended) people put down the sewers... especially heavy metals and the like.

Originally Posted by tsquare

The problem is (or would be) separating out all the other crap (pun intended) people put down the sewers... especially heavy metals and the like.

Yeah, it would help if we quit peddling drugs for every inconvenience...

Prozac Ocean: Fish Absorb Our Drugs, and Suffer For It

The fish are acting funny because they’re on Prozac.

In the U.S., more than 200 million prescriptions for antidepressants are given out every year. A lot of the contents of those pills eventually end up in our water supply, either from patients’ excretions or from pills flushed down the toilet. Since water treatment plants aren’t designed to remove pharmaceuticals, we’re effectively medicating our streams and rivers.

Chemists have found that water downstream of water treatment plants holds a veritable medicine cabinet worth of antidepressants, including venlafaxine, bupropion (Wellbutrin), citalopram (Celexa), fluoxetine (Prozac) and sertraline (Zoloft).

The concentrations of antidepressants in the water—billionths of a gram per liter—aren’t enough to affect larger species, but they are enough to make small fish and fish babies feel woozy. Researcher Meghan McGee tested the effect of antidepressants on young minnows by exposing unhatched and newly-hatched minnows to levels of antidepressants commonly found downstream of water treatment plants. The drugged minnows appeared lethargic and took twice as long to react to stimulus, making them much more vulnerable to predators.

McGee then upped the dosage of antidepressants to see how they would affect fish that feed on minnows, such as hybrid striped bass. When the concentration was increased to several millionths of a gram per liter, the bass spiraled into a drug-induced haze and exhibited some really weird behavior. Some hung around vertically in their tanks, others skimmed the surface with half of their backs exposed in the air (even though they are normally a bottom-dwelling species). They lost their usually voracious appetites and ignored the minnows that swam around them. The males took on feminine characteristics, loosing their masculine facial bumps and growing yolk protein.

In humans, many antidepressants (allegedly) work by altering levels of serotonin in the brain, but some also function like the sex hormone estrogen. It’s not clear how the drugs are working in the fish, but it’s clear all that Prozac isn’t doing them much good. Meanwhile, some communities have begun drug disposal campaigns that collect unused drugs to be incinerated instead of flushed into the water supply.

That explains a lot doesn't it.

Can you imagine the health care savings. Not only on the antidepressants, but by eliminating the need to put the kind of preservatives in food to last on the shelf that must have side effects on people.

Should have never forced the Japanese away from using their own poop to grow their crops. Those honey buckets recycled well, although it was a bit stinky.

We literally waste a lot of shit in this Nation. We need to "go brown" as we go green.

Whatever. I'm not about to start shitting on my garden... but the compost pile is a different story.

Originally Posted by Jefe

Whatever. I'm not about to start shitting on my garden... but the compost pile is a different story.

Yeah, you have to "cook" it first to make sure the nastier microbes are dead, which is what happens in compost.

There are other ways that should take a lot less time. Running it through a (dedicated) insinkerator, exposing it to ultraviolet LEDs, and introducing key bacteria should speed the decomposition.

We'll soon have to go off of natural-gas based fertilizers anyway. The US sources of natural gas are being pre-empted for residential & industrial heating, some power generation - the cost per BTU is going beyond what we're willing to pay for cheap food.

& yes, raising the equivalent calories in plant vs. meat is very much cheaper - in terms of water, fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, transportation, refrigeration, labor, etc. The US is one a handful of countries where it makes sense from a dietary/health point of view to reduce the meat protein intake per capita. Which would also reduce the intake of rBGH, the antibiotics & steroids fed to cattle, chickens, pigs to plump them up & keep them marginally healthy in the feedlot.

Next up - quit putting hormones (& chemicals that mimic hormone activity in the body) into cosmetics, baby lotions, shampoo - Buckle up, kids, it's going to be a long, bumpy ride ...

Originally Posted by Commodore

Third, why don't we use humanure?

"We" spend billions on sewage removal and treatment systems, largely so they can sort the garbage from the crap. Why can't we as individuals produce something that is either useful to farmers, or that we can use ourselves to grow our own food. I can't be the only one that finds the patch of lawn over the leach field is always the part that always clogs the mower.

If we can learn how to use that humanure in hydroponics and aquaponic systems (the latter makes extensive use of fish poop to grow plants, and produces edible fish) we can move the fruited plains and amber waves of grain indoors to our basements and attics, resorting those fields to pasture and nature. With that pasture, we can do outrageous things like feed cows grass, and use smaller livestock that reach slaughter weight in one season.

You might want to check out sewage sludge. It is what you think we should use.

Sludge News | What is sewage sludge?

The policy of disposing of sludge by spreading it on agricultural land-a policy given the benign term “land application”-has its inception in the Ocean Dumping ban of 1987. Before 1992, when the law went into effect, the practice had been, after extracting the sludge from the wastewater, to load it on barges and dump it 12, and later 106 miles off shore into the ocean.

But many people who cared about life in the ocean knew that, wherever it was dumped, the sludge was causing vast dead moon-scapes on the ocean floor. New EPA regulations for “land application” were promulgated in 1993. With the aid of heating and pelletizing and some slippery name morphs along the way, EPA claimed sludge could be transmogrified into “compost”: compost, the sacred substance of all real farmers. And this “compost,” this Trojan Horse replete with the most complex array of toxic materials industrial civilization has ever known, would “fertilize” America's farmlands.

To carry out this plan EPA made a “win-win” deal with some solid-waste hauling corporations. In return for taking the sludge off the hands of municipalities, the corporate haulers would get the tax dollars that had previously gone to pay for dumping the sludge in the local landfill. This deal was indeed a “win” for municipal authorities who had suffered the mess, and worse the liability of sludge; it was a “win” for the corporations which, besides getting the tax dollars, wouldn't suffer from the liability either because that, amazingly, was transferred to the farmer on whose land the sludge is spread.

Originally Posted by CDavidNeely

You might want to check out sewage sludge. It is what you think we should use.

Sludge News | What is sewage sludge?

Yeah, the idea would be to collect the poop separately from the storm drain run off, and for people to not flush toxic stuff.

It would probably work best on the homeowner level.

Originally Posted by hoosier88

& yes, raising the equivalent calories in plant vs. meat is very much cheaper - in terms of water, fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, transportation, refrigeration, labor, etc. The US is one a handful of countries where it makes sense from a dietary/health point of view to reduce the meat protein intake per capita. Which would also reduce the intake of rBGH, the antibiotics & steroids fed to cattle, chickens, pigs to plump them up & keep them marginally healthy in the feedlot.

The trick is to raise livestock many more places at a lower density, instead of all in one spot. This allows natural grazing and doesn't put down more manure than nature can handle. Smaller livestock also help. Shifting our meat sources to rabbits, chickens, and aquaponically grown tilapia, which can be raise in the back yard, have very little impact. A handful of smaller Dexter cattle can be raised on just as many acres of grass.

Fish poop is already working wonders.

Originally Posted by Commodore

Fish poop is already working wonders.

That's cool stuff, IMO. I heard a story about this (I think it was on NPR) being done in an urban setting, reusing an old factory building. I could see myself implementing something like this in my own back yard.

Originally Posted by Jefe

That's cool stuff, IMO. I heard a story about this (I think it was on NPR) being done in an urban setting, reusing an old factory building. I could see myself implementing something like this in my own back yard.

Particularly when you combine Tilapia and Duckweed.

Originally Posted by Commodore

The UK Register has something interesting today. A story on a "coming crisis" in agriculture spawning from increased dependency on industrial fertilizers.

Smear agricultural land with human poo


From the Ass. website:


First off, I'll say the same thing to these guys as I do to the TSA, hands off the meat.

Second, does anyone really think that outdoor organic crops can feed the world, while susceptible to pests and weather?

Third, why don't we use humanure?

"We" spend billions on sewage removal and treatment systems, largely so they can sort the garbage from the crap. Why can't we as individuals produce something that is either useful to farmers, or that we can use ourselves to grow our own food. I can't be the only one that finds the patch of lawn over the leach field is always the part that always clogs the mower.

If we can learn how to use that humanure in hydroponics and aquaponic systems (the latter makes extensive use of fish poop to grow plants, and produces edible fish) we can move the fruited plains and amber waves of grain indoors to our basements and attics, resorting those fields to pasture and nature. With that pasture, we can do outrageous things like feed cows grass, and use smaller livestock that reach slaughter weight in one season.

The bottom line is we can save money by taking control of our own agriculture, and become more self sufficient. If we take command of our food supply, that will make us less susceptible to economic forces, reducing the need for everything from pensions to unemployment insurance.

You should take a look at milorganite
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