Looks like technology has come full circle:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Search-is-on-for-new-uses-for-cow-manure/2007/03/15/1173722657180.html

Home-buyers of tomorrow could find themselves walking across floors made from manure.

That is no cow pie-in-the-sky dream, according to researchers at Michigan State University and the US Department of Agriculture.

They say fibre from processed and sterilised cow manure could take the place of sawdust in fibreboard, which is used to make everything from furniture to flooring to store shelves.

Farmers traditionally use manure to fertilise their fields. But as the scale of farms has grown - with more and more animals densely concentrated in a single location - they can find themselves with too little land for the manure they produce.

"Farmers are having to put more and more money into dealing with manure," said Tim Zauche, a chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville who is working on the USDA research project.

A dairy farm can spend $200 ($A254) per cow per year to handle its manure, Zauche said. Those costs include onsite processing and spreading, as well as transportation for offsite disposal.

Environmental activists and regulators are paying increased attention to the contamination of streams and underground water sources from manure runoff. And people who move into what used to be rural areas often complain about manure's odour.

Under pressure from regulators and the public, more large livestock operations are installing expensive manure treatment systems known as anaerobic digesters.

The digesters use heat to deodorise and sterilise manure, while capturing and using the methane gas it produces to generate electricity. The systems also separate phosphorus-laden liquid fertilizer from semisolid plant residue.

So far, fibreboard made with digester solids seems to match or beat the quality of wood-based products.

"It appears that the fibres interlock with each other better than wood," said Charles Gould at Michigan State's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

I think some hippy communes or similar groups already ferment cow dung to produce methane for energy (cooking). In India they burn it directly in cooking fires.

I've spent a night inside a 'Yak-dung' house up in the Himalayas. Compacted turd as walls in a part of the world devoid of wood because they chopped all the trees down and deforested the mountain slopes to accommodate landslides.
Yep - thems very 'spiritual' people up there where everything turns to s**t. 

I can't think of a pun !!!!!!
Surely, there must be one.


What about human poo houses ?
Can they do high rises ?
What about mass production ?

Gordon wrote on Nov 21^st, 2017 at 8:33am:


The Giant Plop

Gordon wrote on Nov 21^st, 2017 at 8:33am:


Besides Harris Park? I can't think of a one ...

Carl D wrote on Nov 21^st, 2017 at 1:55pm:


It's a habit of mine Carl,
to bring up the past
but in a constructive way.
I sometimes cruise the old days from way back and resurrect.
Sometimes there is an old Topic which has 'forecast' and its interesting to see how things have progressed since 10 years back - of how some MEmbers have been spot on in their predictions.

Turd Houses are still going strong around the world where good wood, stone are in scarce supply. Just look at Harris Park - turd is everywhere!

AiA wrote on Nov 21^st, 2017 at 9:30am:


A curry house maybe? The diners could eat a curry then drop a poop to add to the structure.