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Yes, let's put human waste containing a whole Walgreens' of drug residues onto a field growing our food crops. What could possibly go wrong?
by pfdietz 2y ago
Yes, let's put human waste containing a whole Walgreens' of drug residues onto a field growing our food crops. What could possibly go wrong?
- psd1 2y agoGood question. It's about unknown unknowns, right? But we could map out where those may be. I guess chemical toxicity, drugs with long half-lives that affect soil organisms, and antibiotics that promote resistance. (yeah yeah they are all chemicals.) For the chemical toxicity, it's chemicals that are harmful to plants but allowed for human consumption, or chemicals in sufficient quantity to disrupt soil balance. Doesn't seem like a real concern? With metabolic disruption to soil organisms, yes, there may be real danger there. That smells like previous environmental mistakes. Antibiotics, yeah, some danger. Livestock is exposed, and resistance-conferring genes might jump directly to human pathogens. It's worth studying. There are requirements for both sewage processing and fertilising soil, so the value of a solution would be high.
- chairmansteve 2y agoYes, at an industrial level it's a problem. But as a small scale regenerative farmer, its the thing to do. Like many things, poop doesn't easily scale....
- pfdietz 2y agoI don't see what scale has to do with it. The concentration of drug residues in manure is independent of the quantity.
- candiddevmike 2y agoMilogranite and similar are exactly that. Burned up human waste fertilizer.