Question
QUESTION: Hi, i heard that there is this bacteria which eats up waste and multiplies itself.

It then becomes a soil fertilizer, i am not sure about the method. But if i am not mistaken, i was told if the bacteria is combined with the waste at a certain temperature (e.g 35 C to 45 C ) , the fertilizer can be created.

Can you tell me more about this? I've been researching for 2 weeks but i have not come up with any name for this. I heard the company that does this is based on Canada and they are manufacturing it in China since they have more waste there.

ANSWER: Sounds interesting, Carey.  I need to know what WASTE you are referring to.  There are pollutants -- oil from oil spills, PCBs in soil and water, etc -- that might be considered 'waste'.  There's sewage -- definite 'waste', different bacteria.  Tell me more please and I think I might be able to i.d. this for you.

THE LONG ISLAND GARDENER

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Long Island Gardener!

tried to ask you a follow up but you were fully occupied! The things that i consider as the waste is a compost.

If i am not wrong, it is called microbial products. Can you tell me more about this as my project due date is near.

Thanks a lot!

Answer
A company based in Canada?  A plant for making it in China?  And it's only Compost?

I don't know where you heard about this company, or the plant, but there are lots of ways to do this and it's being done all over the planet.

I'll tell you a little about what I know along the same lines.  Without better information to work with, though, I can't i.d. the Canadian organization or their product line.

Let's get started.

You're probably too young to know about The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous -- Miller Brewery.  That was its slogan.  But there's a fertilizer that is making Milwaukee, Wisconsin, even MORE famous: Milorganite (gets its name from the winning entry in a contest held back in 1913, when someone dreamed up this idea of recycling the city's sewage and selling it: MILwaukee ORGANic NITrogEn fertilizer  marketed by the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District).

The fertilizer gets its own website:

www.milorganite.com/home/

In their page, 'How Milorganite Works', they explain that 'Milorganite is derived from dried microbes'.  In their page, 'Milorganite's Benefits', they point out: 'Soil microbial activity controls the release rate of Milorganite Nitrogen. Microbial activity occurs when Soil moisture is adequate and the temperature of the Soil is between 55 and 85 degrees F.  This is when Soil microbes break down Milorganite into plant available Nitrogen.  When conditions are not favorable for Soil microbes, Milorganite Nitrogen stays in the Water insoluble form.'

Milorganite is, they say, 85 percent water insoluble Nitrogen.  Converting the temps they post, microbes would be active in Milorganite when the Soil measured between 12.7 and 29.4 degrees C.  Your 35 to 45 degree C range is actually quite warm, 95 to 113 degrees F.

If you take something like industrial or chemical waste, you start depending on anaerobic bacteria; they don't need Oxygen, but they do use Sulfates, Carbonates and other compounds in digestion.  Put to work on toxic waste products, anaerobes generate Methane, Ethanol and other biogases when they're done.

In molecular terms, Sewage and Garbage waste are just a cocktail of Sugars, Carbohydrates and Proteins, easily digested by aerobic bacteria and pelletized to make fertilizer or to clean wastewater and make drinkable H2O.  One system I've found uses 'Bio-Chips'.  It is sold as the solar- or electric-powdered Bio-Toilet, manufactured by a Japanese company, and distributed in Canada by Recyclet Corp.  Their website describes the process:

'The Bio-disposer uses our exclusive Bio-Chip, which is made of fine conifer porous Wood chips.  When Sewage is stirred with the Bio-Chips, active Bacteria will be propagated.  They will naturally reduce when sewage has been completely decomposed.  This is highly hygienic and odorless since the Bio-Chips is effective in deodorizing waste.'

As you can see, English is not the native language of the marketing executive who penned that paragraph.  It seems that the sludge, sewage and wastewater treatments of the future are being developed in Asia.  The first place in the world to use Biotechnology: China.  Alcohol produced by fermentation, formulas for culturing Bean Curd, a vaccine for Smallpox, mastery of Crop Rotation -- the region has a history of supremacy in the biotechology field.  Right now, there are at least 20 Biotechnology Industrial Parks around the Chinese continent  -- in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzheng.

As you suggested, water pol1ution is a serious threat in a nation of 1.3 billion people.  Not surprising, Chinese companies working on the problem are studying microbes to detoxify their wastewater and scrub their sewage.  There are at least 2500 of these companies on Mainland China.  Their names?  I haven't got a clue.