From Bricks to Beer: Soil Products We Use (IYS Theme for October).

From bricks to beer, cotton to cosmetics, two-by-fours to biofuels—the products of the soils are virtually everywhere we live.  People use these things every day – generally without thinking of them as direct or indirect products of soils. Soil itself is a very useful material. As many as half of the world’s people live in homes build largely from soil (wattle and daub, rammed earth, adobe, etc.). Many others live or work in buildings made from bricks - which are molded and baked clay soil material. Many extremely valuable pharmaceuticals are derived from soils and soil organisms. Most of us are alive to red this because of antibiotic drugs which fall into this category of soil products. Certain soils are the source of the rare earth elements that make our high tech devices tick. However, most products of the soil come to use indirectly through the plants that soils support.  Soil-grown plants and the animals they feed provide nearly all our food, much of our clothing, building materials, paper, and fuels. One nice thing to remember about these soil-plant-animal system products:  they are renewable so long as we treat the soils well. Unfortunately, obtaining other products, like bricks and rare earths may destroy the soil resource itself. October’s theme reminds of to be mindful of soils and all their gifts.