Before you throw out that leftover plate of pasta, the city of Los Angeles wants you to be aware you are now required to compost it.

“It’s sort of like the same type of material that we’re currently handling,” said environmental engineer Bernadette Halverson. “It’s just a matter of moving the food waste from the black bin to the green bin. And by doing that we’re actually doing our part, helping the environment.”

L.A. Sanitation rolled out its new composting program as part of the new state mandate aimed at getting organic waste out of landfills. All of its 750,000 customers must now toss their food and food-soiled paper, such as a pizza box, into their green bin, along with their yard waste.

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/la-now-requiring-residents-compost-food-scraps/

Can human waste be used as a fertilizer?

Some say yes it can.

Using fertilisers derived from human faeces and urine can be as productive as conventional organic ones, with no risk of transmitting disease, according to new research.

It may seem unappetising, but humans have been using human waste as a fertiliser for thousands of years because it contains the key nutrients that plants need to grow, including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Ploughing human excrement – conventionally flushed down our toilets and into the sewage system – back into the soil creates a more sustainable farming system without significant drops in yield, the researchers found.

The team studied a crop of white cabbages grown 12 miles (20km) south of Berlin between June and October 2019. They tested three waste-based products: two fertilisers derived from human urine and one from human faeces called “faecal compost”. The effects were compared with those of using a commercial organic fertiliser, vinasse, which is made from sugar-beet and is a byproduct of bioethanol production.

The lead co-author Franziska Häfner, a PhD student at University of Hohenheim in Germany, said: “The fertilisers from nitrified human urine gave similar yields as a conventional fertiliser product, and did not show any risk regarding transmission of pathogens or pharmaceuticals.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/cabbage-experiment-human-waste-faeces-fertiliser-aoe

We all know the ‘flat earthers’ are stone crazy and now their big deal is that Australia is a fake….

I’ve never been to Australia. I hear it’s lovely. I know some lovely people there, too. Still, I recognize that it’s sort of a crazy natural death trap that also represents the worst instincts of British colonialism made manifest. This is a continent full of flaming fields of spiderwebs where indigenous populations were wiped out to make room for prisons before someone realized they were sitting on an oil goldmine, thus inspiring even more brutal human rights violations in the name of wealth creation, which in turn contributed to climate change which made the crazy fire animals even crazier.

You don’t need to make shit up about Australia because Australia is absurd enough on its own. But apparently, even that was not enough for these Flat Earthers on Facebook:

Flat Earthers: “Australia is fake and all Australians are actors paid by NASA”

It always amazes me how far people will go to inflict harm on their neighbors….the newest way is in North Carolina…..

Authorities in North Carolina have issued a scary warning: Watch out for razor blades when you reach for the pump at a gas station. The Forest City Police Department says in a press release that razor blades were found attached to the undersides of the handles of pumps in that town as well as surrounding areas. It’s not clear how long the blades had been there or who is responsible. “We are actively investigating these instances now in cooperation with the state Department of Agriculture and will follow up with more information when available,” the department says.

The Department of Ag was conducting inspections when the first razor blades were found at three area businesses, WSOC-TV reports. Other stations were then searched as a result. WLOS has a picture of one of the rusty blades that was found. Authorities say they were glued or taped to the pump, and they believe the perpetrator or perpetrators wanted to hurt someone. A local points out that some parents let their children pump gas, making the situation particularly scary. “Why would someone want to do this sort of thing?” a police lieutenant asks. Adds a detective, “It’s a very evil thing to do, for lack of a better word. It’s just mean-spirited.”

There you are my Saturday news dump….I hope you enjoyed the diversion.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”