Flush with riches: Scientists strike gold in human faeces
New study finds that precious metals could be harvested from human excrement
A fortune could be saved from going down the drain by extracting gold and precious metals from human excrement, scientists suggest in a new study.
Faeces contains traces of gold, silver and platinum at levels that would be seen as commercially viable by traditional prospectors.
"The gold we found was at the level of a minimal mineral deposit," said Kathleen Smith, of the US Geological Survey.
To assess the viability of mining sewage, the team collected samples from small towns in the Rocky Mountains, rural communities and big cities and used a scanning electron microscope to observe microscopic quantities of gold, silver and platinum.
In findings presented on Monday at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society in Denver, the scientists showed that the levels of the precious levels were comparable with those found in some commercial mines.
The study, which involved testing of treated sewage samples, found that 1kg of human waste contains around 0.4mg gold, 28mg of silver, 638mg copper and 49mg vanadium.