Turning Human Waste into Plastic

One of the unsung heroes and villains of modern life is human waste, or poo as we like to call it. It is like death and taxes in that well known phrase about certainty, there is an awful lot of it around, and it is full or carbon.

A few years ago there was uproar when we discovered that farmers were using human waste to make their plants grow faster, a practice that like many of life’s more unsavoury issues has remained largely out of the public gaze for years. But what do we do with all of this waste? We can just pump it out into the sea, or dump it in landfill sites as is common in the USA, although these don’t really seem like great solutions to me. Good news is on the horizon though, a company in California has started to use it to make plastic, taking some out of the dumping category and making use of the carbon.

Admittedly we have the old gag reflex again. A plate of carrots grown with the aid of human waste to go with your minced beef with horse trace pie with a plastic bottle made out of human sewage full of fresh, crystal clear mountain water to wash it all down. But just think about the potential.

Waste Not.

Make Use of Human Waste

Plastic can be produced using human waste, bottles can be made from it, and it is biodegradable, so why not? This BBC video tells the story of an experimental bio-plastics lab called Micromidas, where this process is being experimented and researched, and where human waste is already being turned into plastic.

The process involves making a kind of nutrient soup from the waste to which bacteria is added. They produce something called PHA, a type of polyester. They feed on the waste and take up the carbon and turn it into this form of plastic. Then the plastic containing parts are separated and cleaned.

The material is then dried, the plastic extracted and made into pellets. It can then be used to make practically anything that we currently make using fossil fuel based plastic. There is after all no shortage of raw materials, so proponents hope to replace the old fossil fuel production with the new.

The process is very much in experimental stage, but the researchers hope to be able to produce on mass within the next 2 to 3 years, bringing the price down so that it can compete in a global market. Good for everyone, and the environment.

Just as a slightly less obnoxious adjunct I would like to add that Micromidas are also setting up a lab that is working on turning cardboard into Paraxylene, a chemical once more used to make plastic bottles, again in the hope of getting into and cutting out the fossil fuel market (usually Paraxylene comes from oil). Read this report about their work.

Freedom of Information or Criminals?

In this post I would like to tell the stories of two young gentlemen, Aaran Swartz and Bradley Manning.

Many of you will know these names. Aaron is unfortunately all over the web this week due to his recent suicide, and here in Boston there is a lot of soul searching going on.

Aaron Swarz

Aaron Swartz

Aaron started young, at the age of 14 he was part of a working group that developed the RSS system. He was co-owner of Reddit, having been owner of Infogami, a company that merged to form the Reddit that we know today. He was most importantly an online activist, fighting for open access and against the Stop Online Piracy Act.

His activism got him into trouble with the police however. In the first instance he was investigated for publishing documents managed by the Administrative Office of the US Courts. These were public documents but the administrative office charged per page for individuals to see them. Aaron did not believe that this was fair so decided to take the chosen course of action. After an investigation he was not charged however, so no case was ever brought.

His second brush with the law went rather differently however. In 2011 he was arrested and charged (amongst other things) with fraud and unlawfully taking information from a computer. He had allegedly walked into the MIT library, attached his laptop to the system and downloaded 4 million academic articles.

His complaint was that the database holding the articles (JSTOR) were unfairly paying royalties to article publishers and not authors, and in doing so and charging for their service they were restricting public access. JSTOR did not push for charges and made no complaint, but Massachusetts Attorneys did, stating that “stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars”.

The charges carried a possible prison term of 35 years and a 1 million dollar fine.

After Aaron’s death his family criticized both MIT for not behaving responsibly when the activity was discovered and the US attorneys for disproportionately pursuing criminal charges. Some people argue that the problem lies in the law however, because it does not differentiate between taking things for profit and for other reasons. In effect stealing money from the bank is the same as stealing articles, even if the aim of stealing the articles is not to make money from the crime.

The BBC has a collection of messages from many of the best known architects of the cyber world and they really demonstrate the great esteem that the entire community held for Aaron. We do not know and will never know why he chose to take his own life, nor if the possible 35 years in prison played on his mind and pushed him into it, but as I stated at the beginning there is a lot of soul searching here about how the entire event was handled.

To Bradley Manning. Bradley is another young man who got on the wrong side of the authorities. He is a soldier who worked in intelligence, not high ranking but with access to a certain amount of low level classified data. He was arrested in Iraq in 2010 on suspicion of passing data to Wikileaks and is currently in a military prison awaiting trial.

Bradley Manning

Bradley Manning

Before his arrest Bradley was possibly not in the best frame of mind. Life in Iraq is not easy, he was taunted for his presumed homosexuality and self acknowledged gender difficulties and had outbursts of anger and self reclusion. He was not transferred though, nor his access to classified information revoked.

At some point Manning allegedly forwarded what were later to be known as the Iraq War Logs and Afghan War logs to Wikileaks, a crime that prosecutors say he admitted to in online chats.

He was charged with Aiding the enemy, a crime that carries the death penalty, although prosecutors have stated that they would only ask for life in prison without parole. An offer was made for a guilty plea in return for 16 years in prison but Manning maintained his not guilty stance.

Once again Manning’s presumed crime was not committed for profit but in order to give the public information that he believed they had a right to. The most known of all of the materials is the killing of the 2 Reuters journalists by a US helicopter crew, a sickening thing to watch.

Manning was very unhappy about the type of war he saw and felt that the general public needed to see what he had seen, and referring to the helicopter killing video said something in one of his chats that I believe expresses his motivation; “well what would you have done if you had seen it?”

YouTube’s most watched UK videos of 2012

As there are now just a few days left in 2012, this is going to be another fun/festive post 🙂

Last year I explored YouTube’s most popular 10 videos in the UK for 2011, and it turned out to be an enjoyable post to write, (and hopefully also to read/watch) so I thought I would do the same again this year!

In the UK, the 10th most popular video was the BBC video posted as part of their coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Games, which featured James Bond escorting the Queen to the games. The video is entitled James Bond escorts The Queen to the opening ceremony and is a must see – hence why it is below 🙂

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In 9th place, is the The Nick Clegg Apology Song, as created by The Poke. Mr Clegg (leader of the Liberal Democrat party) made a political party broadcast in September of this year, apologising for breaking his promise about not raising university tuition fees. The Poke then used Autotune along with some video editing, to make a very funny apology song out of Mr Cleggs speech.

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Pop/Opera duo Charlotte & Jonathan, came in an impressive 8th place, with their video which has received over  25 million views since March this year. The video is a recording of their performance on the TV show, Britain’s Got Talent, a show which they untimely finished second. Check out their video here.

The 7th most popular video in the UK this year was Felix Baumgartner’s jump from space. Felix broke world records as he jumped from over 24 miles above the earth, landing safely after a reaching a maximum speed of 833 miles per hour!

6th place was taken by the fantastic market trader who had a ‘£1 Fish’ song. Songs seem to be doing pretty well this year in terms of trending on YouTube! The camera man asks the market trader to “Do your fish song for me…” and the trader starts a fantastic song in order to try to sell his stock. Again, this is a must see 🙂

There is also a remix done by The Poke (the same people who made the Nick Clegg apology song) which is also worth a watch.

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asdfmovie4 was 7th on the list last year, and the next edition of the comedy animation was sure to be a hit too, which it was with asdfmovie5 taking 5th place on the 2012 list.

4th place was claimed by Lucy Spraggan’s audition on the X Factor. She sung a song she had written called Last Night, which the audience loved, and became an instant hit!

A cover of the song Somebody That I Used to Know took the bronze medal position, coming in third. The band Walk off the Earth did a cover of the Gotye song, which involved all five of the band members using the same guitar to play the song. It was very clever and a pretty good song, hence why it was a major hit.

KONY 2012, a video by a US activist group about the use of child soldiers took third place. The video is almost 30 minutes long, which is pretty impressive considering how popular it proved. Its popularity was probably due to the emotional impact it had on people.

Now for the big one, the video that was top of the UK list and top of the global list. The video which is now the most watched video on the internet. The video which became popular in the shortest amount of time. The video which had spread around the world in just a few weeks. That video is Gangnam Style. If you haven’t seen it, or heard it, you are among a select few! Earlier this month, the video by Korean artist Psy, made YouTube history, topping 1 billion views! The video has been rated millions of times, with over 6 million likes, and around half a million dislikes.

So that’s it, the 10 most popular YouTube videos of 2012. In memory of the great videos that have trended this year, YouTube have put together a fantastic compilation video, which includes references to loads of the websites popular videos this year, or as YouTube put it: “We invited some YouTubers to star in a mash-up of culturally defining moments of 2012. Can you spot all the references?”

If you have seen all of the above videos, it is great fun to watch this YouTube 2012 mash up.

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Global Top Ten

If you are interested, here is the global top 10 trending videos of 2012:
YouTube's Logo

  1. Gangnam Style
  2. Walk Off the Earth
  3. Kony 2012
  4. Call Me Maybe
  5. Obama v Romney epic rap battle
  6. A dramatic surprise on a quiet square
  7. Why you asking all them questions?
  8. Dubstep Violin
  9. Facebook parenting
  10. Freefall from the Edge of Space

What was your favourite video of 2012, and which video(s) do you feel had a major global impact?