Human Waste, Urine Safe Replacement For Chemical Fertilisers, Claims Study

Researchers from Europe have discovered that fertilisers made from human faeces and urine are safe for use, with really minimal quantities of chemicals from medicines or drugs getting in the food, reveals a Bloomberg report.

Unsplash

Researchers screened human waste for 310 chemicals from pharmaceuticals to insect repellents and found that only around 6.5 percent of these were over the limit of detection and at low concentrations.

They did detect two pharmaceutical products in edible parts of cabbages -- the painkiller drug ibuprofen and anticonvulsant drug carbamazepine, they were in minimal concentrations. Basically, around half a million cabbage heads would need to be consumed to accumulate a dose equivalent to one carbamazepine pill.

This research comes at a time when governments across the world are trying their best to keep fertiliser costs manageable and boost self-sufficiency post Russia¡¯s invasion of Ukraine, increasing prices of natural gas which is a key component for providing nutrients to crops.

This has resulted in a massive surge in fertiliser costs and this has forced many farmers to switch to animal dung and even sewage to replace synthetic crop nutrients. However, these alternatives haven¡¯t proved to be as effective.

Unsplash

The study suggests that some products processed from human waste can come close to matching the efficiency of artificial alternatives.

lead author Ariane Krause said in a statement, ¡°If correctly prepared and quality-controlled, up to 25% of conventional synthetic mineral fertilisers in Germany could be replaced by recycling fertilisers from human urine and faeces.¡±

Keep visiting Indiatimes.com for the latest science and technology news.