Polemics on Ethical Aspects in the Compost Business

Composting can indeed be a metaphor for ethics. This paper is a product of that fact:

“Polemics on Ethical Aspects in the Compost Business,” Josef Maroušek, Simona Hašková, Robert Zeman, Jaroslav Žák, Radka Vaníčková, Anna Maroušková, Jan Váchal, Kateřina Myšková, Science and Engineering Ethics, epub May 31, 2015. (Thanks to Ivan Oransky for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at The Institute of Technology and Businesses in České Budějovice, and at Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic, write [we have added boldness to the key sentence, which itself is pretty bold even without bold lettering]:

“This paper focuses on compost use in overpasses and underpasses for wild animals over roads and other similar linear structures…. The opinions of the sale representatives’ with regards to other alternatives of biowaste utilization and their own products were reviewed. The robust analyzes of several “accelerated” composts revealed that the quality was generally low. Only two accelerated composts were somewhat similar in quality to the blank sample that was produced according to the traditional procedure. Overlaps between the interests of decision makers on future soil fertility were weighed against the preferences on short-term profit. Possible causes that allowed the boom of these underperforming products and the possible consequences are also discussed. Conclusions regarding the ethical concerns on how to run businesses with products whose profitability depends on weaknesses in the legal system and customer unawareness are to follow.”

In this music-and-words video, the lead author discourses on a variety of topics: