Comments on: There’s No Genie in that Bottle http://taoofchange.com/2008/04/02/theres-no-genie-in-that-bottle/ Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:53:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1-alpha By: jfg http://taoofchange.com/2008/04/02/theres-no-genie-in-that-bottle/#comment-1127 jfg Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:05:51 +0000 http://taoofchange.com/2008/04/02/theres-no-genie-in-that-bottle/#comment-1127 On the topic of composting human waste, that's sort of the problem. Sewage sludge has been used as fertilizer on crops and of course it too contains pharmaceuticals and all sorts of other nasty stuff which gets into food. Once you put it into the environment, it's pretty hard to get it out. It has to go somewhere, and it won't necessarily stay there or stay in the form it started in (or was transformed into in a lab). I was quite disturbed to hear that antibiotics have even made their way into plants that we eat. One obvious easy thing to do is to cut down on industrial meat eating and thus on production. If there wasn't such a high demand for meat, and cheap meat, we wouldn't be giving 2/3 of our antibiotics to our livestock and then ingesting it via our water, our vegetables, etc. I'm honestly not as worried about antidepressants in the water as this out of control antibiotic and hormone and hormone mimicking materials spread throughout our environment. It's become ubiquitous, it seems like, like plastic, as well. I'll never forget reading how plastic breaks down into ever tinier pieces and is now found in every handful of sand you pick up anywhere in the world. And so it is with all our chemicals. On the topic of composting human waste, that’s sort of the problem. Sewage sludge has been used as fertilizer on crops and of course it too contains pharmaceuticals and all sorts of other nasty stuff which gets into food. Once you put it into the environment, it’s pretty hard to get it out. It has to go somewhere, and it won’t necessarily stay there or stay in the form it started in (or was transformed into in a lab). I was quite disturbed to hear that antibiotics have even made their way into plants that we eat. One obvious easy thing to do is to cut down on industrial meat eating and thus on production. If there wasn’t such a high demand for meat, and cheap meat, we wouldn’t be giving 2/3 of our antibiotics to our livestock and then ingesting it via our water, our vegetables, etc.

I’m honestly not as worried about antidepressants in the water as this out of control antibiotic and hormone and hormone mimicking materials spread throughout our environment. It’s become ubiquitous, it seems like, like plastic, as well. I’ll never forget reading how plastic breaks down into ever tinier pieces and is now found in every handful of sand you pick up anywhere in the world. And so it is with all our chemicals.

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