How Kansas City is making millions from human waste

By Tyler Falk | December 31, 2012, 2:15 PM PST

After cities have cleaned out waste in water treatment plants, they’re left with clean water and something called sewer sludge that’s packed with human waste, toxins, and other impurities you wouldn’t want in your water. Kansas City treated it like other cities and burned it in incinerators. Until they realized its value.

Now the city uses the sludge as fertilizer on its 1,340 acres of city-owned corn and soybean fields. Don’t worry, the crops aren’t used for human (food) consumption. Instead, the city sells the crops to biofuel makers. It’s an endeavor that’s turned into a money maker for the city, The Kansas City Star reports:

The ingenious part of the equation is that Kansas City has made $2.1 million in net income over the past six years doing something that used to cost it money.