Manure Fiberboard May Be The Next Big Thing
They say that fiber from processed and sterilized cow manure could take the place of sawdust in making fiberboard, which is used to make everything from furniture to flooring to store shelves. And the resulting product smells just fine.
The concept has its skeptics.
Traditionally, farmers put manure to use by spreading it in their field as a natural fertilizer. But as dairy farms and other livestock operations have gotten larger and more specialized, they can find themselves with too little land for the manure they produce.
"Farmers are having to put more and more money into dealing with manure," said Tim Zauche, a chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. "This is a huge cost to farmers."
Under pressure from regulators and the public, more large livestock operations are installing expensive manure treatment systems known as anaerobic digesters.
The solids have some known uses, such as for animal bedding and potting soil. Agricultural scientists would like to find more.
Scientists at Michigan State in East Lansing and at the USDA‘s Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wis., are conducting tests on various types of fiberboard made with the "digester solids."
So far, fiberboard made with digester solids seems to match or beat the quality of wood-based products.
Gould and Laurent Matuana, a forestry professor at Michigan State, are working on a final report on their pilot study of manure-based fiberboard, funded by a $5,000 grant from the Michigan Biomas Energy Program.
In Wisconsin, the USDA forest products lab has just begun an 18-month, $30,000 study that will test the strength and endurance of the manure-based fiberboard and examine the economic practicality of using digested fiber to make building products.
One good thing about the manure-based fiber is cost, said Zauche, who is working as a consultant on the USDA lab‘s research project.
"Its cheaper than dirt," he said.
Whether that‘s enough to overcome the public‘s squeamishness about using a manure byproduct as a building product remains to be seen, said Craig Adair, spokesman for APA — The Engineered Wood Association, a Tacoma, Wash.-based group that represents the plywood industry.
"If nobody in industry has an interest, it will die," Adair said.