Skip to main content

Fungi as a Solution to Our Landfill Problem

 By Anahi Tinajero

Fungi as a Solution to Our Landfill Problem

    A rise in population has increased the demand and waste of childcare products such as diapers, especially in urban areas. On average, a child uses 6.9 diapers per day (4.6 of these contain only urine) and most are disposed with general waste and accumulate in landfills and dumps, however, diapers can be degraded with the help of a fungi. Pleurotus ostreatus is an edible fungus that is able to degrade agricultural waste such as the cellulose that is found in diapers. In fact, 50.2% of most diapers are composed of cellulose pulp, which P. ostreatus can degrade with common co-substrates found in urban cities. A study conducted in Mexico city investigated P. ostreatus as a biological treatment for used baby diapers and found that diapers (without plastic) as substrate and wheat straw used as co-substrate had a median reduction weight of 70.8%. Since wheat straw is not very accessible in urban cities, the study also considered co-substrates such as grass (median of 53.5%) and withered leaves (median of 58.1%). Even though the plastic components of diapers will not be degraded by P. ostreatus, even with a co-substrate, it is worth emphasizing that the degradation of more than half of the diaper will result into a decrease of waste for the already full landfills and dumps. Using P. ostreatus for the degradation of waste with high biomass content, such as diapers, would be a great sustainable way for urban cities to combat their landfill challenges. 

Average composition of baby diapers (in weight percentage) available in the Mexican market. (Espinosa-Valdemar et al., 2015)

Reference

Espinosa-Valdemar, R., Vásquez-Morillas, A., Ojeda-Benítez, S., Arango-Escorcia, G., Cabrera-Elizalde, S., Quecholac-Piña, X., Velasco-Pérez, M., Sotelo-Navarro, P. X. 2015. Assesment of Gardening Wastes as a Co-Substrate for Diapers Degradation by the Fungus Pleurotus ostreatus. Sustainability. 7:6033-6045.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Jacinda SolisNovember 18, 2020 at 7:11 PM

    Imagining the amount of diapers that the world has gone through in the last century is very concerning to fathom about. Like have they all been degraded at this point? This was interesting to read about as I did a fungal community as well, like who knew that a natural growing organism we see on a daily or every once awhile can actually be a solution to help maintain the earth's sustainability. Hopefully the next course to see will be a wider scenario where they start trying multiple other fungi and see what they have to offer.

    ReplyDelete
  2. M MendezNovember 30, 2020 at 4:38 PM

    I really like that they tested other co-substrates that could be considered waste products. Can the material at the end of this process be used in public gardens (for non-edible plants), given that it would not leach toxins into the soil?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How are health-care and trees related?

By: Ritzuko Gutierrez  Unfortunately, there are flaws in our system. One of these flaws is the lack of access to high-quality, affordable health care in rural areas. People who suffer from this issue, may be incentivized to rely on illegal activities. For example, illegal logging in order to get cash to pay health care needs. Tropical forests are mainly affected. The loss is greater than gain and it leads to a change in landscapes, livelihoods, biodiversity, and climate change. Providing high-quality health care to rural communities with limited resources and income options living nearly a tropical rainforest benefits both conservation and human health. Globally, 35% of protected areas are managed by local communities and when designing a conservation program, they are rarely considered in it. Although, this idea has benefits for humans and the environment, it also has its negative consequences. When applying, incentive-based conservation approaches, it can either go well or bad. B...
1 comment
Read more

Oil Spills: 3D graphene

 By: Mary Aguilar          Oil spills has become a very big problem and causing a big problem for marine life.  This study discuss the importance of how oil spills have been a problem, and a solution on how to prevent oil spills from occurring. The article talks about how 3D graphene materials can remove dyes from the water. The 3D graphene can absorb both oils and organic solvents with also many other dyes have been studied in this research. The study concludes that there is possible use for 3D graphene but like many studies there is always disadvantages because it can clean oil spills under water but it is unable to absorb nanomaterials. Therefore the 3D graphene needs improvement in order to be able to solve the problem of oil spills, because if this is able to work then marine life can be saved.  Figure 1: Different ways graphene can be synthesized.  Riaz, M.A., McKay, G., & Saleem, J. (2017). 3D graphene-based nanostructure...
1 comment
Read more

Is Hydroelectric Power actually a "Green" Energy Source?

Is Hydroelectric Power actually a "Green" Energy Source? Source: Tennessee Valley Authority (public domain) Greenhouse gases are gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, and the three major greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Natural sources of these gases consists of lakes, rivers, streams, and ponds as well. Lakes are environmentally beneficial because they are active, changing, and are important regulators of the three major greenhouse gases. That being said, lakes and reservoirs are known to be built for the purpose of generating power. So much so that water has been retained by dams that the global sea level rise has lowered approximately 0.02 inches per year in the span of 50 years. And since fossil fuels are not utilized to to produce hydroelectric power, lakes are known for their "green" energy sources alternative. Which is a common misconception because it is those lake and reservoirs that release powerful greenhouse gases into t...
Post a Comment
Read more