Sustainability

Phosphorus is an essential ingredient in fertilizer, critical to the world's food supply. However, the conventional phosphorus fertilizer production cycle is an energy-intensive process that releases greenhouse gases into the environment at every stage: 1) mining of phosphorus ore, 2) concentration into phosphate rock, 3) transportation from mine sites around the world, 4) centralized manufacture into fertilizer, and 5) transportation to customers.

Each year more than 100 million tons of phosphate rock are mined and processed into fertilizer. Over time this fertilizer enters the ecosystem as waste and agricultural runoff, leading to excessive nutrient levels, or a condition known as eutrophication. Eutrophication causes excessive algae growth in lakes, streams and oceans which depletes the oxygen supply in the water that is necessary to support aquatic life.

Crystal Green®'s slow-release of nutrients virtually eliminates run-off and ensures that all nutrients remain in the soil where they are applied, and do not end up in adjacent waterways, polluting the environment. The increasing accumulation of nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, discharged into the environment is one of the most significant environmental challenges facing the planet, according to the 2005 United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

Conversely, Ostara recovers phosphorus (Crystal Green fertilizer) from wastewater that would otherwise be incinerated or dumped on landfills, both with negative environmental consequences. Heat needed to dry the Crystal Green fertilizer pellets is recovered from the host wastewater treatment plant.

In addition to reducing phosphorus runoff into the environment, Ostara's wastewater plant customers and Crystal Green customers contribute to environmentally sustainable development and to the reduction of greenhouse gases.

Phosphorus Famine: The Threat to Our Food Supply
Scientific American Magazine, June 2009
By David A. Vaccari

This underappreciated resource--a key component of fertilizers--is still decades from running out. But we must act now to conserve it, or future agriculture could collapse.