Phosphorus Pollution
We’ve long since crossed the red line on phosphorus pollution and the effects on the Earth have been devastating. If humanity continues down this path, we risk compromising countless ecosystems around the world - Leticia Carvalho
image by: African Farm Resource Centre
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How Mass-Produced Meat Turned Phosphorus Into Pollution
It's a quandary of food production: The same drive for efficiency that lowers the cost of eating also can damage our soil and water.
Take the case of one simple, essential chemical element: phosphorus.
Phosphorus is one of the nutrients that plants need to grow, and for most of human history, farmers always needed more of it. "There was this battle to have enough available phosphorus for optimum crop production," says Kenneth Staver, a scientist with the University of Maryland's Wye Research and Education Center, which sits between farm fields and the Chesapeake Bay on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
That's also the tension in this story: agriculture on one side, and…
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Phosphorus and Water
Phosphorus is a common constituent of agricultural fertilizers, manure, and organic wastes in sewage and industrial effluent. It is an essential element for plant life, but when there is too much of it in water, it can speed up eutrophication (a reduction in dissolved oxygen in water bodies caused by an increase of mineral and organic nutrients) of rivers and lakes.
Phosphorus pollution reaching dangerous levels worldwide, new study finds
Phosphorus is a common component of mineral and manure fertilizers because it boosts crop yields. However, a large portion of phosphorus applied as fertilizer is not taken up by plants, and either builds up in the soil or washes into rivers, lakes and coastal seas, according to the study's authors.
Phosphorus: 350 years after its discovery, this vital element is running out
The story of how the 15th element on the periodic table was discovered stands as one of the great accidents of human endeavour – the chemist’s equivalent, perhaps, of Columbus setting out for India only to find the Americas by mistake. In the case of phosphorus, the explorer was Hennig Brand, a 17th-century alchemist and merchant from Hamburg, Germany.
Phosphorus: Humanity Is Flushing Away the Element
The clear consensus among phosphorus experts is that humans must start mending the phosphorus cycle to reduce the environmental damage caused by pollution and to waste less of an increasingly scarce resource.
Plantwatch: phosphate leading to widespread pollution
Plantwatch: phosphate leading to widespread pollution Phosphate fertilisers are causing dangerous levels of pollution in waterways that harm aquatic plants and animals
How Mass-Produced Meat Turned Phosphorus Into Pollution
It's a quandary of food production: The same drive for efficiency that lowers the cost of eating also can damage our soil and water. Take the case of one simple, essential chemical element: phosphorus.
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