• Doomsider@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      There was this great story about New York wastewater management program. A reporter was doing an in depth dive into their wastewater system and noticed that after the wastewater was concentrated into a solid mass after filtering they would haul it away in trucks.

      The reporter asked a simple question about where the trucks go but was immediately rebuffed. They would not tell them so the reporter got in their car and followed them. They went to the Black Gold potting soil factory where the solid human waste was converted into potting soil for people’s gardens.

      • Johanno@feddit.org
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        14 days ago

        Eh duh. Obviously you want to use the fertiliser instead of throwing it away.

        I thought everyone knew that all countries (probably) use human waste as fertiliser.

        The difficulty is to get rid of medicine traces and heavy metals but you can make money with shit.

        • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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          14 days ago

          You may think it is common knowledge, but there was a reason Black Gold had a contract that explicitly stated waste management cannot divulge where the biosolids are sent.

          I highly doubt they filter out heavy metals and pharmaceuticals though. That would be prohibitively expensive plus I hear that plants love Prozac. They crave it apparently.

          I think you are correct though, everyone does it.