Category FAQs Search : Ecosystem
Question: What is the other uses of peatlands and peat?
Answer: Peat moss can absorb liquids up to 10 times its dry weight. From the mid-19th century until World War Two, peat moss litter was used throughout much of Europe as a bedding material for animals, especially horses. Peat has also been used as a filter for gases, odours and liquids (e.g. in biofiltration systems for the treatment of septic tank effluent). It has also been used to make charcoal. In pharmaceutical industries, peat, along with activated charcoal, has been used to absorb impurities in liquids and gases. Peat has also been heat treated to absorb spilled oil. Peat mixed with tar and plaster of Paris (gypsum) has been used to make insulating material and wadding for the building industry.
Numerous other products have been derived from peat or peatland plants, including:
• textiles from the fibres of the leaves and stems of cotton grass (Eriophorum spp.);
• bitumen, oil and charcoal;
• plastic composites that can replace oil-based raw materials;
• flavouring in the production of malt whisky through the imparting of phenols into barley that is ‘malted’ over a peat fire; and
• baby nappies and wartime field dressings.
In addition, many peat preparations, some with cosmetic value, have been used in human and animal medicine. Peat partly replaced mud in balneology, the science of application of water from curative springs and peloids (mud or clay containing humus and minerals) in the early 19th Century. The oldest spas still practising peat therapy are in Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany.
Several countries are considering the suitability of blueberry cultivation on cut-over peatlands. The Canadian peat industry, for example, operates mainly in rural areas, and the cultivation of berry plants after peat extraction could bring social and economic benefits to these communities. This type of production, however, must be integrated within a management programme that combines ecosystem restoration and reclamation goals.
Interest is growing in paludiculture, a management activity that uses biomass from wet and rewetted peatlands under conditions that maintain the peat mass, promotes peat accumulation and provides some of the ecosystem services associated with natural peatlands. Many time-honoured collecting activities on natural peatlands, such as berries and fungi, are examples of paludiculture. In recent years, however, alternatives for changing land use on wet and rewetted peatlands have been implemented and assessed. Some of these alternative practices reintroduce traditional forms of land use but use the biomass for new and novel products, such as construction materials, insulation panels and biofuels.
(Source: MITIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN AGRICULTURE SERIES 9 - Climate-responsible peatlands management (Food and Agriculture of United Nations), 01 Feb 2021)
Source Link: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4029e.pdf