For The Eco Concerned

[Strifer684]

Came across this article on mushrooms that can break down a diaper completely in four months. I thought it was a pretty awesome possibility.

http://www.economist.com/node/18584104

Bottom feeders

A novel way of dealing with an unpleasant problem

DESPITE their name, disposable nappies are notoriously difficult to dispose of. Studies of landfills suggest they may take centuries to rot away. But Alethia Vázquez-Morillas of the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City thinks she has found a method of speeding the process up.

As she and her colleagues describe in Waste Management, cultivating the right type of mushroom on soiled nappies can break down 90% of the material they are made of within two months. Within four, they are degraded completely. What is more, she says, despite their unsavoury diet the fungi in question, Pleurotus ostreatus (better known as oyster mushrooms), are safe to eat. To prove the point she has, indeed, eaten them.

The culinary use of oyster mushrooms was one reason why she picked them for the experiment. The species is frequently used in stir-fries and is often added to soups. The other reason was that Pleurotus ostreatus is widely used in what is known as mycoremediation—the deployment of fungi to clean up waste. It is, for example, already grown on agricultural materials such as wheat and barley straw, and industrial waste like coffee grounds and the leftovers from making tequila. Dr Vázquez-Morillas and her colleagues were trying to extend the oyster mushroom’s own culinary range.

The reason nappies are difficult to break down has nothing to do with their use. Even a clean nappy would hang around for a long time in a dump. The main ingredient of a nappy is cellulose, an annoyingly persistent material. Pleurotus, however, grows on dead or dying trees in the wild and is thus well provided with enzymes that break cellulose down. And, since Mexicans alone throw away 5 billion nappies every year, there is plenty of material from this source for them to get their mycelia into.

The idea that the result might be sold and eaten may be controversial but it is not absurd. The nappies the researchers used were contaminated only with urine, not faeces. A healthy person’s urine is sterile and Dr Vázquez-Morillas also treated the nappies with steam, to make sure. Such treatment would kill the nasty bugs in faeces, too, though, so mushrooms grown on treated nappies should, in theory, be safe to eat.

In practice, overcoming the yuck factor might be an insuperable barrier to marketing nappy-grown fungi, and the cost of the steam treatment could make the exercise futile. Mycoremediation of this sort does not, however, depend for its success on selling the results. Merely getting rid of what would otherwise hang around indefinitely is worthwhile. And of the fungi themselves, Dr Vázquez-Morillas observes, “they are cleaner than most of the vegetables you can find in the market, at least in Mexico.

[timmyc]

so I have to save all my diapers and spend a small fortune on mushrooms? WHat are the practical results of this discovery? I don't get it.

[Strifer684]

Haha! I suppose if you REALLY wanted to...

Though if some place decided to deal with diapers separately, like recycling is separately collected, then it could help reduce what sits in landfills, over time

It was diaper related and I thought it was interesting...doesn't mean everyone else necessarily agrees.

[timmyc]

I didn't say it wasn't interesting and it belongs here for sure. I still don't see any practical applications.

[lildiaperboy]

Timmy-laboratory experiments take very long times to be converted into practical procedures, sometimes never are but usually get the ball rolling so to speak.

Strifer- Thanks for posting, very interesting I would not be surprised if a number of other fungi and saprotrophs (organisms that decompose various substrates for the metabolic mainstream) possessed this ability to a varying degree.

[cruxshadow]

so I have to save all my diapers and spend a small fortune on mushrooms? WHat are the practical results of this discovery? I don't get it.

Actually it has a broader spectrum of applications. Petroleum oil in general, at least (plastic is petroleum based) The mycologist Paul Stamets discussed this at a talk he gave almost 10 years ago (the same species of mushroom was involved,) and he found that the oil covered mound not only became fertile again, the mushrooms grown were edible. This is not only useful for oil spills, but we'd be able to safely degrade oils along with organic products like wood and paper. Most clothing is also plastic these days (polyester,) so throw that into the mix as well.

I wish I could gain acclaim in the scientific community by lifting someone else's discovery a decade later, as Dr Vázquez-Morillas has done.

[WallaWalla]

I didn't say it wasn't interesting and it belongs here for sure. I still don't see any practical applications.

It turns waste into food, how much more practical could you expect it to be?

[ItchyTasty]

It turns waste into food, how much more practical could you expect it to be?

Except imagine the costs of having to sterlise all the turds/ body fluids which can contain DEADLY diseases, germs and bacteria and pathogens,etc.

Instead of wasting money sterlising the waste. Why don't they have a special diaper collecting service that turns diapers into fuel pellets to help make electricity with. Which I've heard about before.

So could easily all have say a special wheely bin sized yellow bin for baby and adult disposables. I know some people can get such on request but I think you pay for the bin, and the service, and the biohazard bags.

I'm not sure if it's just for incontience products or could be for other more dangerous medical waste for incineration.

[LILJIM]

collecting service that turns diapers into fuel pellets to help make electricity with. Which I've heard about before

I read before 1-2 towns baled burnable waste for the electric company to burn; recylced the metal & glass & food stuff sent to a pig farm. This cut thier landfill use way way down.