Phosphate Fertilizer

Phosphate minerals are a vital and essential natural resource which is dwindling every day. Phosphates are used as fertilizers in modern agriculture. They are absolutely necessary as they are a basic component to all life, and the people of the world could not be fed without it.

There is a problem however; supplies are running out. At current rates of use (which are only expected to rise) the U.S. domestic phosphate mines will be depleted in 50 years and the entire world’s supply will be gone in 100 years. To compound the problem, phosphate minerals are distributed very unevenly throughout the world, even more unevenly than oil. China and the U.S. each have about 20% of the world’s phosphate reserves and the country of Morocco has 50% of the entire world’s reserves. A sustainable way of managing phosphates must become commonplace or the inevitable result will be mass famine.

One company, Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies, has already taken steps to mitigate the loss of phosphate by extracting phosphates along with other minerals from the urine in wastewater and producing a phosphate fertilizer from it. While this is a great and ultimately necessary first step, more will have to be done if the world’s food supply is to be maintained.

The product I propose is similar to Ostara’s, however in addition to the minerals extracted from urine, an additional phosphate source will be added in my product which was overlooked in Ostara’s. The additional phosphate source in my product is animal waste, specifically the bones of cattle, poultry, and even fish, which are very rich in both phosphate and calcium, two essential minerals for plants. Normally, the animals extract these minerals from the land, but the minerals are usually not returned to cropland after the animal is slaughtered. This product would lead to an agricultural future which is more sustainable, and a world which is less hungry.

Furthermore, this is a product which is very green. By recycling phosphate minerals, many environmental hazards are mitigated. For example, using my product, phosphate fertilizers can be provided locally, rather than having to be shipped from the phosphate mines in Florida or Morocco to locations all over the world. This would result in a reduction of the use of fossil fuels which in turn reduces a myriad of pollutants and greenhouse gasses. Furthermore, the phosphate runoff from wastewater and animal waste leads to massive algae blooms in the ocean, which consume all the oxygen in that area of the ocean, creating a “dead zone” where little more than jellyfish can survive.

It is a product which is profitable, necessary, sensible, sustainable, and green.