There’s Gold in That There Poop

In early 2020, wastewater monitoring was a niche field, to say the least.

WBE (Water-Based Epidemiology) was mainly concentrated around poliovirus detection in a few specific countries, specific pharmaceuticals or illicit drugs, and environmental pollutants.

Suddenly, WBE had every reason to draw in new aspiring scientists and researchers. It grew by leaps and bounds as everyone became interested in tracking wastewater to determine whether covid was spreading in a particular area. This proved to be more effective than conventional reporting mechanisms, especially as it became increasingly difficult to find accurate reporting from public health authorities.

Now, everyone wanted to check out the poop stream. You could save lives and prevent outbreaks by looking at doodies!

It’s extremely likely that WBE will increase over time and become more integrated into mainstream public health practices.

In this case, the gold was in the data, but it has hidden in other places, too.

During ancient times, the gold was in the nutrients. Manure (poop) from both humans and animals makes for fantastic fertilizer, largely thanks to macronutrients like Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium.

Manure also provides a ton of organic material to the soil, and it makes it more crumbly and aerated, allowing roots to grow and water to get in. Poop also provides a lot of food for bacteria and fungi in the soil, which both play a very important role.

Our ancestors knew all about this. Romans, Egyptians, Mayans, Hindus, and Chinese all have documented cases of using poop to help crops grow. It was valuable stuff—so valuable that it might mean the difference between eating and starving.

I don’t know when manure was first sold, but by the middle ages, it was a common commodity. In Europe, lords owned a ton of land and livestock, so they had more manure than they could reasonably be expected to put to use. However, peasant farmers working the land needed manure, so a market opened up.

The Industrial Revolution caused an enormous demand for fertilizers, but by the early 20th century, synthetic fertilizers took a huge bite out of the manure pie. Today’s sustainability movement has brought something of a rebound, but total poop sales are much lower today than they were a hundred years ago.

Finally, there’s also literal gold in poop.

We routinely eat minuscule amounts of gold in our food. The water we drink (bottled or tap, doesn’t really matter) has even smaller amounts of gold, and even dust we inadvertently swallow can contain tiny gold flakes.

Now, most of this gold passes right through us, and that means it ends up in the purview of WBE. Gold is inert, so it doesn’t enter our bloodstream or cause serious damage the way that lead or mercury does. This is not medical advice! Don’t go eat a bunch of gold, but keep in mind that (very thin) gold foil is sometimes used in fancy cooking.

Since all that gold ends up down below, surely there must be money in mining it!

Before you head to Browntown to start prospecting, realize that the amount of gold (relative to your poop) is probably much smaller than a drop of water is to an Olympic sized swimming pool. There’s just no economically viable way to get gold out without spending way, way more money than the value of the gold itself.

I’ve done it again! I’ve written about poop.

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