Phuket's Patong To Transform Feces Into Fertilizer

[Lite Beer]

Phuket's Patong to transform feces into fertilizer

Patong Mayor Pian Keesin lays out a plan for the city’s sludge

PHUKET: Patong Municipality will apply for a 65-million-baht loan to build a treatment plant that will convert thousands of tonnes of Phuket’s fecal matter into fertilizer.

The Patong Council yesterday carried the motion in favor of building the fertilizer factory, with a plan to profit from the horrendous waste.

Residents and tourists in the resort town generate up to 10 tonnes of solid crap a day, explained Patong Mayor Pian Keesin.

From July 2010 to September 2011, the solid waste amounted to 2,020 tonnes, he added.

“I would like to turn this sludge into valuable fertilizer,” he told the council.

“Right now we are giving it away. It helps plants and trees to grow very quickly, but if used on flowering plants, the flowers will not bloom,” he said.

“If we turn it into fertilizer, it will make a lot of money for us.”

The loan application will be filed with the 'Office of Environmental Fund' and include plans for a two-storey building covering 1,168 square meters of land at the Patong Wastewater Treatment Plant to produce the fartilizer.

The plans will also include a six-room, two-storey accommodation block for workers.

“The loan should be approved within six months and it will take about one year for construction,” said Mayor Pian.

“The fertilizer plant will be able to produce 10 tons of fertilizer a day. The current market price for fertilizer is about 10 baht a kilogram, but we will sell it for only five to six baht a kilogram.

“If we follow the plan, I am sure we will be able to pay back the loan within seven years,” Mayor Pian said.

Source:http://www.phuketgazette.net/archives/articles/2011/article11415.html

-- Phuket Gazette 2011-11-11

[lujanit]

Does this mean that the jet ski and tuk tuk shit will also be recycled? One can only hope.

[grumpyoldman]

I think a bio fuel plant would be better, could generate electricity.

[hyperdimension]

I have thought about this before, as animal feces are rich in nutrients for plants, which is why manure from animals like cows are used as fertilizer, and human feces is not an exception. The only hurdle is overcoming the general taboo perception of human feces, which is largely borne from its unpleasant stench that we experience during and after excretion.

I like the concept of going back to the cycle of nature:

1. Animals eat food, including plants

2. Animals' bodies digest nutrients from the food and excrete the remainder as feces

3. Other nutrients that were not digested and remain in the excreted feces are absorbed by plants as they grow

4. Back to 1

I have seen a documentary about Vietnam in which this cycle has actually already been implemented using human feces for a long time. Families in rural areas who grow their own food produce both fertilizer and cooking gas using their own feces.

Edited November 12, 2011 by hyperdimension

[Jimi007]

I have thought about this before, as animal feces are rich in nutrients for plants, which is why manure from animals like cows are used as fertilizer, and human feces is not an exception. The only hurdle is overcoming the general taboo perception of human feces, which is largely borne from its unpleasant stench that we experience during and after excretion.

I like the concept of going back to the cycle of nature:

1. Animals eat food, including plants

2. Animals' bodies digest nutrients from the food and excrete the remainder as feces

3. Other nutrients that were not digested and remain in the excreted feces are absorbed by plants as they grow

4. Back to 1

I have seen a documentary about Vietnam in which this cycle has actually already been implemented using human feces for a long time. Families in rural areas who grow their own food produce both fertilizer and cooking gas using their own feces.

I have seen it being used for a long time in California for methane to generate electricity and power the sewage treatment plant as well as the left over solids that have been processed, deodorized and trucked away then used for fertilizer on some crops... The treated water is supposedly clean enough to drink but is discharged into the ocean. In some areas it is used to water some crops. But the process isn't cheap.