Attention Nebraska readers: Your department of public works has joined forces with the greater powers that be to "recycle" human waste into manure. Sure, we're all used to the notion of cow dookie suplementing our crops essential nutrient regimen, but isn't human waste a bit too close to home?

Not if you don't antropomorphize the idea, according to me. Waste is waste. While ours probably has a higher nitrogen quotient (most of us are meat-eaters, or at least omnivors, compared with the naturally herbivious cow...not including the manufactured cow meal that's losing it's lustre in light of the recent outbreak of BSE), nitrogen is essential to many crops; mostly legumes and corn.

Don't worry, it's not as if the Lincoln Biosolids Program [1]is dumping raw sewage onto the fields...they "digest" it first. We've had similar run-ins with this illconceived nomencalature (click here [2] to read more), but in this case, it's pretty much spot on: heat the sewage to 98.6, release some methane, dehydrate the mass a bit, and let nature run it's endgame.

I think it's a terrific idea; reduces land-use for waste disposal, eliminates the temptation of just dumping the shit into a river, and returns many the compounds we (as humans) ingest to the soil so that we may once again enjoy them. Yumm!