[USCC] Urine-soaked Cardboard

[Edo McGowan]

A complex question, this--------"Will it be considered organic?" To be effective commercially, one would need a lot of hog urine and thus that most probably would come from a CAFO. But then considering how hogs are now raised in these large crowded operations, one needs to know what is in that feed stock (urine) besides urine. There may be large amounts of antibiotics within the urine, some interesting pathogens, and hormones. Would the average fastidious purchaser of certified organic really want this and can you guarantee that it is totally removed or degraded by the composting? The other is a technical question of antibiotics being there in the first place and how might that affect the definition of "ORGANIC"?

Rufus Chaney, well-known in the compost science field, noted--------- "It is clear that many antibiotics are
readily biodegraded during either anaerobic digestion or composting of
manure and biosolids. But not all are so rapidly biodegraded."

Thus from a marketing perspective, it appears that this "But not all are so rapidly biodegraded" adds considerable complexity to the potential claim of organic in the customer's mind and could have a back-lash in the market.

Dr Edo McGowan


> From: woundedegomusic at gmail.com
> To: compost at mailman.cloudnet.com
> Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:13:59 -0500
> Subject: [USCC] Urine-soaked Cardboard
> 
> Can anyone tell me...
> 
> 1) If I soak cardboard in hog urine and let it compost, will it result in a balanced fertilizer? Will it be considered organic?
> 
> 2) If I feed only cardboard to worms, will the worms provide the Nitrogen and whatever else to make it a balanced fertilizer?
> 
> 3) How much does weight change during composting? Will a ton of cardboard yield a ton of compost?
> 
> 4) If I don't wash the ink off of cardboard boxes before composting, can it still be called organic? What if they are processed through worms?
> 
> Thanks so much.
> 
> Bill Ross
> billross @t woundedego (dot} com
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