It may sound so unbelievable at first, but are old
mattresses the secret to growing food-crops in the most challenging of
environments?
By: Ringo Bones
Until recently, the first thing that comes to mind when one
thinks about old mattresses is our looming solid waste landfill problem, but a
team of scientists from the University of Sheffield are turning old discarded
mattresses into “foam soils” that allows any prospective farmer to grow
food-crops in the most challenging of environmental conditions. The team of
scientists managed to successfully grow tomatoes and other vegetables in a
Syrian refugee camp located in the Jordanian desert – an environment that’s so
challenging when it comes to growing food-crops – using disused mattresses
formerly owned by the refugees themselves. The idea first came to one of the
scientists witnessing a few tomato plants managing to grow in the Syrian refugee
camps’ discarded mattress dump despite only receiving scant desert level rainfall
during the past few years.
The chopped-up mattress material is put into waste containers
along with a nutrient mix. Seedlings are planted straight into the foam, which
supports the plant’s roots as it grows. This method of growing crops uses up to
80-percent less water than planting into soil, the scientists claimed, and does
not require the use of pesticides. It looks like a version of low-cost hydroponics
was discovered by accident in a Syrian refugee camp in the middle of the
Jordanian desert.
If it works in other challenging environmental conditions, “foam-soils”
based hydroponics could not only alleviate the problem of disposal of old and
disused mattresses, but also could minimize the food logistics of humanitarian
relief organizations. Imagine if most of the food requirements of a refugee
camp are grown in situ via foam soils hydroponic – as opposed to being either
flown in or shipped in. Not only proving helpful in alleviating a pressing
humanitarian crisis, but also a pressing environmental problem as well.
