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"In Holland on the First Bicycle Path Made of Recycled Toilet Paper"
The article: A Dutch company is reclaiming cellulose fibers from sewer water and adding it to asphalt giving it a more absorbent (and softer on your butt when you fall off your bike?) texture-- less slippery in the rain.
They claim the process can also be used to turn the recycled fiber into pizza boxes. How appetizing!
Yes, those Dutch are pretty smart! They're now recycling industrially (using more energy) a product that recycles itself naturally. Better Living Thru Chemistry.
Another example of (extreme?) recycling-- an Italian company in the business of making absorbent materials has just opened it's first plant to recycle baby diapers and is building a second plant (in Holland, of course).
This short article does not go into details of the process or the economics. But it does point out that disposable diapers take 2-5 centuries to degrade and make up to 20% (!!) of landfill material. (I find that hard to believe, particularly in a country with below replacement rate fecundity.)
Another example of (extreme?) recycling-- an Italian company in the business of making absorbent materials has just opened it's first plant to recycle baby diapers and is building a second plant (in Holland, of course).
This short article does not go into details of the process or the economics. But it does point out that disposable diapers take 2-5 centuries to degrade and make up to 20% (!!) of landfill material. (I find that hard to believe, particularly in a country with below replacement rate fecundity.)
Check out a fertilizer called Milorganite in the US- we outdid the Dutch. It is actual city sewage sludge SOLD to gardeners.
My beef with this is not a danger of biological contamination- they fry the H**** out of it with the high temperatures but what happenes to toxic metals in it from cleaning supplies, paints, etc and remnants of radionuclides from cancer treatments, unused meds people flash in the toilet, etc,etc.
The gardeners are happily spread it all over our beautiful US of A! And some possibly grow fruits and veggies in it!
The gardeners are happily spread it all over our beautiful US of A! And some possibly grow fruits and veggies in it!
Many modern day "homesteaders" are into self-sufficiency and use "humanure" on their gardens-- but it's their own manure, not the combined contaminants of a large population concentrated as sludge at the sewage treatment plant.
Here's a factual article presenting the situation and giving a reasonable analysis of the use of fertilizer from sludge. As they point out, only about 1% of American farmland is treated using this material, so we can't say with any certainty at all that the stuff is safe or not due to the low exposure rate in the general population. Sewage Sludge as Fertilizer: Safe? | Food Safety News
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