[refurb]

I'm not sure I'd assume that all of that vanillin would come from human sources.

The decomposition of wood creates vanillin, which I assume makes up most of what these folks found.

[mirimir]

Huh.

I see that some artificial vanillin is made from lignin, but I don't know whether natural wood decomposition creates vanillin. Do you have a reference for that?

[s_y_n_t_a_x]

lignin is wood (or rather it's a polymer in the cell walls of wood/plants)

[mirimir]

For sure. But the question is whether vanillin is produced during wood decay.

[s_y_n_t_a_x]

It does

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S134035400...

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjfs1953/37/7/37_7_298/...

> vanillin was also detectèd as a product of wood degradation by some other wood destroying fungi.

[refurb]

Good find.

The levels of vanillin in waterways (14mg per liter) are ridiculously high for human urine to be the sole source.

[soperj]

It literally says how much is contained in the sewage run off. You don't even have to click the link.