The Dead Zone the high costs of fertilizer…and being Piss_Poor

[Fledermaus]

I’m a googler and was googling through interwebs when I came across this Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_2n_WBvcdI">Piss_Poor

And it made me think about the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone. I thought it would be interesting to dig a little deeper and understand its causes and some things that we can do to prevent or lessen Eutrophication.

eutrophication
noun
excessive nutrients in a lake or other body of water, usually caused by runoff of nutrients (animal waste, fertilizers, sewage) from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant life; the decomposition of the plants depletes the supply of oxygen, leading to the death of animal life; "he argued that the controlling factor in eutrophication is not nitrate but phosphate"


In the natural world, nutrients are constantly recycled. Nothing goes to waste.

BioGeoChemical Cycles.
We have already seen that while energy does not cycle through an ecosystem, chemicals do. The inorganic nutrients cycle through more than the organisms, however, they also enter into the atmosphere, the oceans, and even rocks. Since these chemicals cycle through both the biological and the geological world, we call the overall cycles biogeochemical cycles. Each chemical has its own unique cycle, but all of the cycles do have some things in common. Reservoirs are those parts of the cycle where the chemical is held in large quantities for long periods of time. In exchange pools, on the other hand, the chemical is held for only a short time. The length of time a chemical is held in an exchange pool or a reservoir is termed its residence time.

http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/102/ecosystem.html#BioGeoChemicalCycles8

However, modern agriculture has broken this natural cycle. When crops are removed and fed to animals, including us, nutrients necessary for healthy plant life are removed from the field. The only way to maintain production is to replace the lost nutrients. Unfortunately, this is done with man made fertilizers.

Well, what happened to the original nutrients? They eventually get excreted, or return to the environment through death. It all ends up back in the environment....All of it. All of these nutrients add up and create http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4624359/">numerus dead zones around the world.

The whole stinking mess is KOYAANISQATSI!!!...Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance."

Is it possible to mend the nutrient cycle? I have a dying fig tree I planted six weeks ago. I have peed on it while watering several times and it has sprung back to life!

Controlling Water Pollution By Isolating Urine
Although urine makes up only 1% of the total volume of wastewater, it accounts for 50–80% of the nutrient content. Nutrients have to be removed by resource-intensive processes at wastewater treatment plants. In the absence of these processes, nutrient discharges pose a risk of eutrophication – threatening in particular coastal waters and fish stocks. Many problematic substances, such as residues of medicines or endocrine disrupters, also enter wastewater via urine and may subsequently be released into the environment.


Novaquatis tested various methods of processing urine. Ideally, treatment should permit recycling of nutrients as fertilizers and, at the same time, removal of problematic micropollutants. For example, 98% of the phosphorus in urine can be recovered by precipitation with magnesium. The product – struvite – is an attractive fertilizer, free of pharmaceuticals and hormones. In Switzerland, nutrients from human urine could serve as substitutes for at least 37% of the nitrogen and 20% of the phosphorus demand that is currently met by imported artificial fertilizers.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070308085444.htm

Flush-Free Fertilizer

Nutrients in a person's urine depend on what she or he has eaten. Analyses of urine used in the new experiments, however, show it contained amounts of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium that were similar to concentrations of those nutrients found in commercial fertilizer.

According to the team's calculations, urine collected from one person throughout a year could fertilize a 90-square meter (970-square foot) plot of soil. More than 160 cabbages could grow in that space.

Compared to a plot treated with conventional fertilizer, a pee-treated plot could grow 64 kilograms (140 pounds) more cabbage, the researchers say. Compared to an untreated plot, the urine-treated plot could yield 256 kg (564 pounds) more cabbage.

Earlier this year, the same team reported that cucumbers also grow better with human urine than with conventional fertilizer.

The power of human pee to grow crops is only just being realized. Next time you flush, imagine the possibilities!—Emily Sohn
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20071010/Note3.asp

More Youtube stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZQdGvpok3Y&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkHi7cswbtc

[hobbit709]

1. Gives new meaning to the phrase "Piss on it"

[Fresh_Start]

2. I've started using shower/bath water for my plants

but I'm not ready to reuse urine

[Arctic Dave]

3. Hmmmmm. Bookmark for later.

[qijackie]

4. That's very interesting. Remember "night soil" is used as fertilizer

in many parts of the world. But wouldn't much of American/Western world pee be full of medicine residue? Are they just talking about urine that is free from drugs?

[kristopher]

5. Two simple solutions

The problem started being addressed in 1974(?) with passage of the Clean Water Act. It has made a huge difference and allowed the cleanup of "point sources" of pollution - large scale polluters that can be easily identified and controlled. The problen now is non-point source pollution - mainly from over use of fertilizers on lawns and farms, and poorly designed and maintained septic systems. Learn to use the proper amount of fertilizer on lawns and gardens, and spend the extra bucks to have your septic pumped yearly and you'll make a big contribution to cleaning up the problem in our waterways.

Be warned, however. This isn't going to be quick results even if we cleaned up every non-point source of nutrients yesterday. The estimated time is about 30 years for the stuff in the underground water systems to completely flush through.

[Fledermaus]

7. 2003 SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANTS:THE CHESAPEAKE BAY WATERSHED’S SECOND LARGEST SOURCE OF NITROGEN

Apparently, 1974 standards are not good enough

SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANTS:
THE CHESAPEAKE BAY WATERSHED’S
SECOND LARGEST SOURCE OF NITROGEN
POLLUTION

Wastewater discharged from sewage treatment plants is the second largest source of
nitrogen pollution to the Chesapeake Bay1. When approximately 12 million of the 16
million residents of the watershed flush their toilets, the wastewater goes to STPs, which
discharge into the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

Bay Program models show that significant reductions in nitrogen pollution from
agriculture, air deposition, stormwater management and STPs, will still not be enough to
achieve the Chesapeake 2000 goal. That is why CBF scientists believe it is critical that
STPs decrease their total nitrogen concentrations to 3 mg/L or less. Table 2 shows that
about 96% of the plants do not meet the 3 mg/L concentration level.

http://www.wvnet.org/downloads/posted%20dec72004/CBF_2003_STP_Report.pdf

[bhikkhu]

6. Thanks for posting that, there will be a learning curve but pee-recycling will be important.

http://www.energybulletin.net/33164.html

It is amazing to find that we mine and transport around the globe diminishing supplies of phosphorous, one of the essential soil nutrients for agriculture, and then piss it away into the oceans, where it wreaks death and havoc upon the largest ecosystems on the planet. Ignorance of things like this is a luxury we may not have for long.