Fertiliser costs have been soaring, contributing to the rapid rise in global food prices and putting increased pressure on farmers and shoppers - but researchers suggest human waste could provide a 'viable and safe' long-term alternative.
Researchers screened human waste for 310 chemicals - including rubber additives, insect repellents and pharmaceuticals - and only found them in 6.5% of the samples examined, but still at low concentrations.
Scientists said low levels of the painkiller ibuprofen and mood-stabilising drug carbamazepine were found - but added that someone would have to eat more than 500,000 cabbage heads to accumulate a dose equal to one pill. Author Franziska Hafner, a student at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, said products made from human urine and faeces"are viable and safe nitrogen fertilisers" and"did not show any risk regarding transmission of pathogens or pharmaceuticals".
The work by experts in Germany also looked at modern products already being made from human urine which are turned into ammonium and nitrate. This included Aurin, which was recently approved for use in agriculture in Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Austria, and CROP - combined regenerative organic food production - which is part of ongoing space projects to recycle wastewater for future bases on the moon and Mars.
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