阿拉木汗

记录学习的过程与心得 周遭的人与事 生活的感恩与遗憾
正文

Waste Into Gold: Uses For Animal Poop And Human Stool

(2013-12-15 18:09:08) 下一个

Every creature poops. Animal poop serves many functions: it can be

 recycled into fuel for cooking, placed in a digester and fermented into biogas

 for heating and cooking, and if the poop is from a herbivore animal, it can be

 transformed into paper. Animal waste also is a feast for dung beetles. People

 maybe be surprised, but human stool has an incredible medical usage.

 

More than three thousand years ago, the Great Wall in ancient China was built to

 defend against northern nomadic horsemen from the Mongolian steppes. The Great

 Wall was composed of hundreds of passes, fortresses, towers and stretches of wall.

 Soldiers in ancient China burned dried wolves dung as fuel in beacon towers to give

 the alarm if an enemy invaded.

 

Nowadays, in many countries of the world, people still use dry animal dung as

 fuel. Dung of cows and water buffaloes are the major fuel sources in many poor

 villages. Village people in China, Afghanistan, or India collect the dung, shape the

 dung by hand into dung cakes or dung patties, and then paste them on the wall or on

 the ground. Village people use the dung cakes or dung patties as fuel when they cook

 (WildFilmsIndia).

 

Many farmers and ranchers in this country collect dung and convert it to

 produce biogas, mainly methane, which is used to generate electricity. Recycling

 animal dung into energy serves multiple benefits: to reduce environmental pollution,

 to reduce air pollution (greenhouse gas), and to create the energy to generate

 electricity. According to Natural Resources Defense Council:

 

In 2011, there were about 180 operational biogas recovery systems on

 American commercial livestock farms, which produced enough

 electricity to power the equivalent of 47,000 homes. The EPA's

 AgSTAR program reported in 2010 that about 8,000 U.S. farms could

 support biogas recovery systems, providing about 1,600 megawatts of

 energy and reducing emissions of global warming pollution by about

 1.8 million metric tons of methane -- the equivalent of taking 6.5

 million cars off the road. (NRDC)

 

Herbivore animals’ waste such as elephant or sheep dung can be used to make

 paper is a good way to save the trees. Elephants are huge animals that create

 extensive amounts of waste, and their waste is rich in cellulose, which is the majority

 of traditional wood-pulp paper. The process to make dung paper is very natural, for

 no chemicals will be added. This might be the reason Christopher Ofili, a British artist

 and the Turner Prize winner, uses elephant dung paper for his paintings (South).

 

In Thailand, workers at The Elephant Dung Paper Company collect the elephant

 dung, wash the dung and boil it for five hours, spin the dung to cut fibers for up to

 three hours and add color, weigh the dung fiber into equal balls, sift the liquid fibers

 evenly into frames, dry the frames in the sun, sand the dung paper to a smooth

 surface, and then assemble the dung paper into packages (elephant dung paper).

 

Mr. Ellie Pooh is another company that produces elephant dung paper. Years ago,

 Karl Wald, an American doctor, took a trip to Sri Lanka. This adventure ended up

 with an elephant dung paper company: Mr. Ellie Pooh. The company’s workshop in

 Sri Lanka was “Established with the goal of reducing conflict between humans and

 elephants, it has turned to making paper products to boost local incomes and

 create a direct economic incentive to protect the elephants.” (South)

 

According to the company’s website “Mr. Ellie Pooh’s paper products are

 100% recycled.” “There are no toxic chemicals used in our paper making

 process.” “Mr. Ellie Pooh’s papers are handmade, acid free and as organic as it

 gets.” The company won the 2008 Green Business Leader Award. Mr. Ellie Pooh’s

 dung paper products can be found in the United States at zoos, fair trade stores, green

 stores, museums, or the online stores. (Mr. Ellie Pooh 1)

 

In Wales, there are no elephants but plenty of sheep. Creative Paper Wales is

 the only handcraft paper manufacturer in Wales, and their paper products include

 “Sheep Poo Paper™”. The raw material, the super-fresh sheep poo, for making Sheep

 Poo Paper™ is collected from the beautiful mountains of rural Wales. After boiling,

 washing, beating, and blending, the sheep poo converts to “a pulp suitable for making

 paper.” Creative Paper Wales only use traditional papermaking techniques to produce

 the pulp into sheets (Creative Paper Wales).

 

These three companies are doing the work most of the businesses would not try,

 And their creative enterprise is a great contribution to the environment.

 

Dung beetles are one of the scavengers of nature. They enjoy having herbivore

 animals’ poop. “Adult dung beetles eat poop, and they also need it to feed their

 young. When two beetles mate, they look for a good food supply (pile of poop). They

 immediately begin digging burrows underneath the poop. Once burrows have been

 dug, both the male and female begin rolling balls of dung to the bottom of each one.

 The female dung beetle lays an egg inside each dung ball. Beetle larvae, called grubs,

 hatch from their eggs and immediately start eating the dung around them.” In order to

 roll the dung balls back to their burrows, dung beetles are very workaholic (Fairfax

 County Public Schools).

 

Human stool also has an extraordinary effect. According to the Centers for

 Disease Control and Prevention, the Clostridium difficile (C-diff), a very tenacious

 bacterium, “causes diarrhea linked to 14,000 American people’s death each year”.

 Fecal microbiota transplant, or F.M.T., is one important and highly effective therapy

 to cure C-diff infected patients. “The idea behind fecal transfers is that restoring

 colonies of healthy bacteria can either dilute or crowd out these harmful strains” (Lee).

 However, the procedure is somewhat tricky. First, “There are only about sixteen

 centers in the country that even offer the treatment” (Lee). Making an appointment

 might take a long time. Second, the donor has to be healthy:

 

The donor has to be healthy (and will be screened, via stool and blood,
           
            for transmissible diseases like H.I.V., as well as for pathogens and

parasites); has to avoid any foods the patient might be allergic to; and

has to be nearby, as freshness is an issue: the bacteria mix may begin

to change once the stool leaves the body. (Lee)

The Mayo Clinic in Arizona has had a team to perform F.M.T. since 2011. Dr.

 Robert Orenstein, D.O., comments about the first transplant that “Unbelievably, the

 patient left the hospital twenty four hours after the procedure, after having been

 bedridden for weeks.” Their team performed twenty-four of the procedures after that,

 and the results are stunning. “In every case, the infection was completely eradicated –

 often within hours or days – although two patients with comorbidities experienced

 relapses.” The success rate is more than ninety percent (Mayo Clinic Org.).

 

Recently, at the 2013 IDWeek, an infectious diseases conference in San

 Francisco, Dr. Thomas Louie, an infectious disease specialist at the University of

 Calgary, presented a study for which he is a lead author about “swallowing pills

 containing a concentrate of fecal bacteria stops recurrent bouts of debilitating

 clostridium difficile infection by rebalancing the bacteria in the gut.” on Oct. 3. The

 co-authors of the study are Kristine Cannon, Heidi O’Grady, Kaiyu Wu, and Linda

 Ward. The “University of Calgary researchers reported a one hundred per cent

 success rate – none of the twenty-seven patients who took the tablet-sized pills had a

 recurrence of C. diff, even though all of them previously had at least four bouts of the

 infection. Patients ingested between 24 and 34 capsules containing fecal bacteria,

 often donated by family members.” There are three methods: enema, colonoscopy or

 F.M.T. However, when one of Dr. Louie’s patients “failed to respond to the enema

 method on two occasions and also could not tolerate a nasal tube,” he started the

 process of making pills for that individual patient. Thankfully it was successful. “The

 IDWeek research suggests the less-invasive pills are viable and effective delivery

 method” (University of Calgary).

 

Another amazing use of poop might be the poop-powered motorcycle, Toilet

 Bike Neo, a three-wheeled motorcycle. TOTO, Japan’s biggest manufacturer of

 toilets, produced Toilet Bike Neo. Its power is from biogas, which is converted from

 “animal excreta” or “household wastewater,” and it can run for a maximum three

 hundred kilometers with a full load of animal excreta, according to the company. The

 driver’s seat is made from a toilet seat, a huge roll of toilet paper is on the tank in the

 back, and there is a talking miniature toilet on the front (Takahashi).

 

It is fascinating to know that the animals and humans waste are not totally

 wasted. In all languages, the words for feces are considered to be indelicate, and

 people use metaphorical expressions to say them. Human ingenuity; however, has

 transformed this same waste into useful products, and this gives the best interpretation

 of turning waste into gold”.

 

 

 

Works Cited

Creative Paper Wales. "Sheep Poo Paper." Creative Paper Wales. N.p., n.d. Web. 02

          Dec. 2013.

 Elephant Dung Paper. "Welcome To Elephantdungpaper.com." Elephant Dung

           Paper. Elephant Dung Paper, n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2013.

 Island Creek Elementary School. “Dung Beetle.” Fairfax County Public Schools.

           Fairfax County Public Schools, n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2013.

 Lee, Marie Myung-Ok. “Why I Donated My Stool.” New York Times 7 July 2013,

           natl.ed.:   Print.

 Mayo Clinic Org. “Quick, Inexpensive and a 90 Percent Cure Rate.” Mayo Clinic Org.

           N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.

 Mr. Ellie Pooh. "Welcome to Mr. Ellie Pooh LLC." Mr. Ellie Pooh. N.p., n.d. Web.

           02 Dec. 2013.

 Natural Resources Defense Council. "Biogas Energy." NRDC: Renewable Energy for

           America: Biogas. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2013.

 South, David, ed. “Turning Animal Waste Into Paper.” Southern Innovator. David

           South, n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2013.

 Takahashi, Yoriko. "TOTO's "Toilet Bike Neo" on Display in Roppongi

           Hills."AkihabaraNews. N.p., 11 Nov. 2013. Web. 03 Dec. 2013.

 United States. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Clostridium Difficile

           Infection. By United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. United

           States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 01 Mar. 2013. Web. 29 Nov.

           2013.

 University of Calgary. "Patients Report High Level of Satisfaction after Taking Fecal

           Bacteria Pills." UToday. University of Calgary, 7 Oct. 2013. Web. 27 Nov.

           2013.

 WildFilmsIndia, prod. “Indian Villager Making Cow Dung Cakes for Cooking Fuel,

           Uttar Pradesh.” YouTube. YouTube, 19 Feb. 2013. Web. 29 Nov. 2013.

[ 打印 ]
阅读 ()评论 (0)
评论
目前还没有任何评论
登录后才可评论.