From: "Rich Gauszka" 

The next time you think that the house looks like shit you may be correct.
The plywood industry appears to be upset also

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070210/ap_on_sc/building_with_manure_5

DETROIT - Home-buyers of tomorrow could find themselves walking across
floors made from manure. Researchers at Michigan State University and the
U.S. Department of Agriculture insist it's no cow pie in the sky dream.
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.

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." A dairy
farm can spend $200 per cow per year to handle its manure, Zauche said.

...

"We really need to think outside the box on what uses for manure
are," said Wendy Powers, a professor of agriculture at Michigan State
University.

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."

As with the wood-based original, the manure-based product is made by
combining fibers with a chemical resin, then subjecting the mixture to heat
and pressure.

So far, fiberboard made with digester solids seems to match or beat the
quality of wood-based products.

"It appears that the fibers interlock with each other better than
wood," said Charles Gould at Michigan State's College of Agriculture
and Natural Resources. "We end up with, I think, a superior
material."

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.

A draft of the report concludes that fiberboard panels made with processed
manure "performed very well in mechanical tests, in many cases meeting
or exceeding the standard requirements for particleboard."

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.

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