this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2024
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[โ€“] [email protected] 52 points 5 days ago (4 children)
  1. We mine and manufacture nutrient dense fertilizer at massive environmental cost.
  2. We use the nutrients to grow plants
  3. We eat the nutrients in our food
  4. We expel 95% of these nutrients in our waste
  5. We dump our waste into the rivers and oceans with all the nutrients (often we purposefully destroy the nitrogen in the waste since it causes so much damage to rivers and oceans)
  6. We need new nutrients to grow plants

Before humans there was a nutrient cycle. Now it's just a pipe from mining to the ocean that passes through us. The ecological cost of this is immeasurable, but we don't notice because fertilizer helps us feed starving people and waste management is important to avoid disease.

We need to close the loop again!

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Are you saying we need to start mining the rivers and oceans for nutrients? Or poop directly on the crops?

[โ€“] [email protected] 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Poop indirectly on crops. Systems like this or the Aztec chinampa system, basically try to keep nutrients in the loop with fish and other aquatic organisms. Obviously, there's a disease risk if you do it wrong, but that's also true for modern water treatment.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

You can sterilize waste pretty easily, we do it all the time, and you should before reclaiming not-water for reuse. Otherwise you're gonna end up with epidemics like it's the 1700s.

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