| Title | USGS Says Mining Fecal Matter May Pay Off Big | |
| Date | Wednesday April 01 2015, @07:51PM | |
| Author | CoolHand | |
| Topic | ||
| from the too-pooped-to-pop dept. | ||
livescience reports it could be time to start mining our poop, instead of treating it purely as waste and fertilizer:
Kathleen Smith, a USGS geologist, thinks people could make more of these biosolids; they're full of tiny particles of metals that find their way into waste through beauty products, detergents and even odor-resistant clothing.
..
They detected some sizable concentrations of platinum, silver and gold when they looked at their samples under a scanning electron microscope, they reported.
"The gold we found was at the level of a minimal mineral deposit," Smith said. In other words, if that level of gold were observed in rock, it would be considered a potential mining prospect.
Sure, it's gross to think about, but why shouldn't we reclaim everything we can from our own "waste" products?
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printed from SoylentNews, USGS Says Mining Fecal Matter May Pay Off Big on 2024-04-23 18:39:00