This week’s Living on Earth program on NPR featured a new technology using cow pies that could be used as an eco-friendly flooring material.
Michigan State University is researching the idea of combining “digester fibers” with plastic by applying heat and pressure to create a kind of fiberboard. From the Living on Earth website:
There’s a surplus of animal waste in the United States; livestock on U.S. farms produce enough manure every year to fill a convoy of trucks stretching from San Francisco to Washington, D.C.
While farmers use cow pies in some quantities for compost, there is still a lot that doesn’t get recycled. The idea is that this new material would suppliment compost and help to manage waste.
It doesn’t smell, either. So don’t you worry about stepping in those cow pies!
You can read more about the research at the Environmental News Network.
