Eco Enzymes?

If garbage enzymes are so efficient and beneficial, then why don't more people know about them and make them?

I'd never heard of "garbage enzyme," so I googled it. Instantly, my Pseudoscience Detection Module started blinking yellow alert. It went to red alert when I saw it was "invented by an alternative health care practitioner."

I gather from reading that it's made by fermenting table scraps with brown sugar and water.

Fermenting table scraps with sugar and water will give you a solution that's not an enzyme, it's mostly dilute acetic acid and alcohol. Acetic acid and alcohol makes an okay cleaner--not particularly great, but not terrible either. You can save a lot of time and effort and get the same result by mixing vinegar, water, and Everclear.

If garbage enzymes are so efficient and beneficial, then why don't more people know about them and make them?

This question has gone unanswered for quite a while now. I'm going to try and answer your question. I hope someone is still reading this. LOL.

Let's make one thing clear. The scientific community will only endorse an idea if that idea has been tried and tested widely. That is the only way one can garner support from scientists. The application of Garbage Enzyme (GE) is controversial in itself. It puts forth some claims that are either untested and unsubstantiated right now or some of its applications just are factually very counterintuitive and contradictory. Also lack of credible expiremental findings, backed by credible data only add to the disappointment.

Here are some of the claims the GE advocates and supporters make:

It acts as a natural and organic cleaning product.
It can be used as natural fertiliser.
It can be used as natural pesticide/insecticide.
It produces ozone gas, that further helps clean our air.
It rids the atmosphere of CO2 and CH4 gases
It is a great method of waste management.

Preliminary test using gas chromatography, acetic acid(vinegar) is found to be the major component. Small amounts of ethanol and propionic acid have also been found. Without a doubt, the process involved in making a GE is natural fermentation/anaerobic oxidation.

This brings me to the underlying problems that production and use of GE poses:

Fermentation with the help of sugar has been used since time immemorial, the production of GE is neither cutting edge nor ground-breaking. Thus, GEs is not a new discovery. It just has provided a way to manufacture vinegar at the household level and reusing kitchen waste. I don't see why the scientific community would endorse something enthusiastically which already exists.
The research on GEs have not been published in any peer-reviewed journals, the credibility on all the uses of GEs mentioned are also subject to widespread scrutiny.
There are very effective household waste management techniques like vermiculture and composting for making fertilisers already present. Making vinegar through waste recycling becomes immaterial, especially when manufactured vinegar is already very cheap in the market.
In the same vein, direct waste management practices like anaerobic digestion that produce methane, if not channelised properly are effectively adding to the greenhouse effect.
Fermentation with the help of sugar to produce vinegar and anaerobic gases like CO2 by yeast leaves behind a higher carbon-footprint than composting and vermiculture.
The rationale for the stipulated ‘3 months’ is doubtable as higher amount of time is required for complete fermentation.
Although I'm doubtful about the production of ozone through fermentation of GE, but if it is true, ground-level ozone is an air-pollutant with adverse health effects and should not be confused with the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere.
Would not make any claims to use of vinegar whether produced by the GE process or otherwise as a fertilizer or pesticide at any concentration. There is no evidence for this whatsoever.
Corrosive acid like vinegar would kill some bugs on contact and if used carefully and might be usable as a pesticide/insecticide. This potential benefit remains to be tested however in dose-dependent studies.

The GEs could be however used as a household cleaning product if one is able to make it successfully, which is a different debate in itself. However, we can agree that the science presented and claims made on GE are flawed and somewhere effective microbial cultures that would be enzymatically rich (but which I’ve not done any homework on) are being confused with enzymatic byproducts. Also provided that we have better methods of household waste management already available with us.

What are enzymes? Do they really have any side effect?

Enzyme is a bioogical catalyst. It is a protein. As chemical catalysts do, they expatiate the biological reaction and lower the activation energy.

The function of enzyme is specific under specific condition.

For example, the amylase in human mouth can only catalyte big carbonhydrate molecules under body temperature and slight low pH level. In other case, the enzyme in stomach can only work under pH2-3 environment. Once it enter duodenum, which is slightly higher pH level environment, it will lost its function.

I'm not understand what side effect you mentioned. If you are asking the side effect of intake enzyme, I would say there are almost no side effects if you eat enzyme, except you eat enzyme like protease... However I don't think there is good effect if you intake enzyme. Because most enzyme will be denatured in extremely low pH level in your stomach!

Franklin Veaux, part-time mad scientist

Updated 5 years ago · Author has 38.6K answers and 546.1M answer views

I gather from reading that it's made by fermenting table scraps with brown sugar and water.

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