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Category: Ramblings | Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2013 6:54 am

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I think I first started coming across alternative methods of dealing with human wastes when I was looking for creative outdoor sheds. The small house movement seemed to have cleverly built small spaces. Who would have thought that looking for what is basically an adult play house would lead to introspection about human bodily waste?

My granddad had an outhouse out on his property away from the house, next to the horse corral. Those are now pretty much illegal except for a few Forest Service ones in national forests. The composting toilets are finding a niche. From what I can determine the human litter boxes with fans are preferable to sheds with holes in the ground.

I read, saw (you tube) one household's small living space with an illegal (for this municupality) composting toilet. Thinking of all the trouble and expense of adding a second bathroom to our old home I can begin to understand the appeal.

In the arid southwest they have city/county codes defining acceptable composting toilets. A small community, I believe in Spain, separated urine and feces at the community latrine for garden and composting. What about cholera, parasites and other unhealthy aspects of human waste? Somewhere I read two years of composting takes care of that, but I'm not sure it was a reliable site. But how does that compare to my grandad's outhouse?

In many parts of the world night soil was a part of agricultural practices. The actual practices were more of a fermentation of the waste than composting from what I read. (Tying in with my bokashi. Actually this may have lead to my discovery of using the bokashi method of recycling household wastes, but I can't remember for sure.). When I first heard about the use of night soil I thought the poor farmer's just took it out to the fields and dumped it every day. Actually the night soil was collected "and stored in large ceramic tanks or water-tight slate-lined or concrete pits." They added livestock manure and fermented mulch like what I am doing with table scraps.

As fresh water becomes less plentiful I wonder if my/our attitudes about mixing human wastes with heavy metals (what happens at the sewage treatment plant) will change. If many sewage treatment plants are recycling the waste to turn it back into drinking water is there a better way? Why don't we think of better ways to conserve water? As a society we have gotten so removed from our own bodily functions that even the use cloth diapers for babies is unheard of for a generation now.

I guess I just find it all baffling. I also understand my own cultural aversion to peeing in the garden LOL. Grandad's outhouse was also fine in the summer, but scary in the long, cold winter nights. Composting toilets fad or wave of the future. Read the last link before you decide. As one forum writer reminded me, "the grass is always greener over the septic".

http://www.agroecology.org/Case%20Studies/nightsoil.html
http://www.agriculturesnetwork.org/magazines/global/wastes-wanted/safe-use-of-treated-night-soil
http://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/display.aspx?p=25581424
http://science.kqed.org/quest/audio/toilet-to-tap/
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/may/12/humanure-composting-toilets

Edited: Laura Allen's composting toilet system is explained in this YouTube video.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tdN_3x8VNCY&feature=plpp.
Guess I have an 8 year olds fascination with poop and pee



Last edited: Sat Sep 07, 2013 4:46 pm

This blog entry has been viewed 852 times

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waretrop wrote on Sat Sep 07, 2013 9:56 am:

This is very interesting.

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memor maplin wrote on Sun Sep 15, 2013 10:28 am:

Interesting. In London the water that comes out of the tap has been drunk four times before. It's a very efficient way of recycling.
PS If you go there buy bottled water. Tap water tastes awful

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