> do everything possible to keep the life in the soil alive: do not use pesticides, funghicides or herbicides since the toxins are not specific and kill all soil life.
It should be noted that glyphosate has antimicrobial and fungicidal properties.
Also, plants can turn the bedrock into dirt, either directly, or through their mycorrhyzal and rhyzosphere bacteria. Trees are especially useful to extract nutrient from rocks.
That being said, I think that Merril has a point. we're accelerating the extraction process (by dumping our waste products in rivers, rather than peeing/pooping where plants grow), and I have no idea how long we'll get away with these practices.
Human effluvia is full of drugs, and thus unfit for agriculture anyways...
> Human effluvia is full of drugs, and thus unfit for agriculture anyways...
For direct application, yes. But it could feed a pipeline where, say, the 3 generation of those nutrients could be harvested and applied to food crops.
Sewage is heavily treated in most places these days - usually by a biological process. The suitably sterilized solid waste can indeed be used as fertilizer.
I don't see any reasonable argument why they should not be able to remove at least sizeable parts of drug residues. There is metabolism in the human body and the is bacterial metabolism. Organic matter will be broken down at least partly.
It should be noted that glyphosate has antimicrobial and fungicidal properties.
Also, plants can turn the bedrock into dirt, either directly, or through their mycorrhyzal and rhyzosphere bacteria. Trees are especially useful to extract nutrient from rocks.
That being said, I think that Merril has a point. we're accelerating the extraction process (by dumping our waste products in rivers, rather than peeing/pooping where plants grow), and I have no idea how long we'll get away with these practices.
Human effluvia is full of drugs, and thus unfit for agriculture anyways...