Image Source: Me.
As the war for resources wage on, I'd like to take a moment to discuss a resource that we throw away every single day: human excreta.
Now, I bet most of you are suffering from fecophobia, as I was until very recently. No one wants to think about their own "business" but we are forced to confront it every day anyway, multiple times per day. Well, have you heard about humanure before? If you use flush toilets, you probably have never heard of it. I only heard about it starting in 2012.
"Humanure (human manure) is human fecal material and urine recycled for agricultural purposes via thermophilic composting. Humanure contains valuable soil nutrients that enhance plant growth. For these reasons, humanure should be recycled whenever possible. Human excrement could be a major source of soil fertility if properly recycled. When discarded into the environment as a waste material, it creates pollution and threatens public health. When recycled by composting, the pollution and health threats can be eliminated. " -Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins
At this point, you're probably thinking, gross, right?
Well, I did too, until I experienced it. Unbelievably the composting toilet at Dancing Rabbit did not smell bad at all. That is because each time someone does their business, they cover it up with carbon-rich sawdust which accomplishes three things: soaks up moisture, creates a covering that prevents odor from escaping and creates a cover that prevents flies from being attracted to it. Additionally, each bucket has a wooden cover so insects cannot get into it.
Here's a video I made during my visit to Dancing Rabbit for the first time, and this documents my first experience with the composting toilet:
Now getting to the stage where I could deal with the concept of humanure took a lot of thinking and deprogramming because I grew up in a germaphobic household.
Image Source: Pixabay
My parents were both in the medical field and they made it very clear that fecal material is to be regarded with fear, loathing and disgust.
I had never questioned this belief system until 2012 when I visited the Dancing Rabbit ecovillage and was finally forced to confront the dreaded human waste issue. At Dancing Rabbit, all human waste is composted in such a way that it is recycled, over a two year period, using methods that organically destroy all pathogens contained within it. The toilets at DR don't have any water in them. Instead, they have sawdust. Each toilet has a seat and lid just like conventional toilets. But instead of a water-filled bowl, there is a bucket filled with excreta and covered with sawdust. When the bucket gets full, it's removed and put into a quarantined area where it sits and is mixed with more straw, hay and the like. It is heated naturally, and reaches over 120 F, which kills the pathogens contained in it. Then during the span of more than a year, microorganisms, worms and other bacteria break down the waste. It turns into dirt after a two year process. At this point, the pathogens are gone and it is able to be used as soil fertilizer.
Image Source: Pixabay
The first person to write extensively about the humanure system was Joseph Jenkins in the United States in 1994.
But humans have been using this holistic recycling system for thousands of years.
He wrote the Humanure Handbook and a condensed version is here. According to Wikipedia, the word, humanure is only used in the United States, as the rest of the world doesn't recognize this as a mainstream system of recycling.
Here's an excerpt of Joseph Jenkins' book:
I well remember in early 1979 when I first informed a friend that I intended to compost my own manure and grow my own food with it.
“Oh my God, you can’t do that!”
she cried.
“Why not?”
“Worms and disease!”
Of course.
A young English couple was visiting me one summer after I had been composting humanure for about six years. One evening, as dinner was being prepared, the couple suddenly understood the horrible reality of their situation: the food they were about to eat was recycled human shit. When this fact abruptly dawned upon them, it seemed to set off an instinctive alarm, possibly inherited directly from Queen Victoria. “We don’t want to eat shit!” they informed me, rather distressed (that’s an exact quote), as if in preparing dinner I had simply set a steaming turd on a plate in front of them with a knife, fork and napkin.
Fecophobia is alive and well and running rampant. One common misconception is that fecal material, when composted, remains fecal material. It does not. Humanure comes from the earth, and through the miraculous process of composting, is converted back into earth. When the composting process is finished, the end product is humus, not crap, and it is useful in growing food. My friends didn’t understand this and despite my attempts to clarify the matter for their benefit, they chose to cling to their misconceptions. Apparently, some fecophobes will always remain fecophobes. -Humanure Handbook
To be clear, I don't use the humanure system, but at our community, we have a system that uses nature to break down our waste. We have flush toilets whose waste is directed to three small ponds which are situated far away from our houses. Remarkably, these ponds do not have any foul odor. The water and waste sit there over time and the waste is broken down by organic processes. This water does not enter our drinking water system, so it's not cleaned and sterilized with chemicals the way that regular sewage treatment plants operate. It is designed to handle a small amount of people and just sit there undisturbed and unused.
I do think the humanure system is actually better because it's part of a holistic life cycle but I'm not ready for it.
Because sewage is not generated, it has advantages with regard to water quality and conservation. I could see how small villages could do this but when it comes to cities, I think it would be difficult. Also, this system heavily relies on individual responsibility. If you had a group of humans who didn't abide by the strict quarantine and composting system, then there would be disease issues.
But a guy in San Diego is doing the humanure system, so I'll leave you with that:
I am curious what sort of gifs might emerge in the comment sections below..........
There are currently two people on Steemit who live at Dancing Rabbit who could answer more questions about the humanure system, @nathanbrown and @dolphindigest.
Came for the poop reference, ended up being educated. Well played.
ah, you are lurking around! jeez, that guy is hot. I was not prepared for him....If he was ten years older......he'd be perfect.
Are you back properly now?
My favorite system is the biogas or biodigester. It uses anaerobic digestion to kill the nasties before letting liquid fertilizer out. The solids break down so much, it takes years before they need to be cleaned out. They're fertilizer too. A constant byproduct is methane, which can be used for cooking. A family of six should be able to cook two meals a day, or at least one if they're cooking longer. If you have a cow and toss in some cow manure, you can cook three meals without a problem. And all your green waste can go into it. Woot! :D
Have you done this? I like this system because it uses oxygen and thus doesn't smell or emit methane. Smelly stuff is hard to live with...
I've been around both, and both work really well. In one of my articles about Haiti I discussed the options.
Each situation is different, so what might work at one place might not at another. The biodigester can be simple to set up, but still requires space. But you can use a simple 5 gal bucket with the composting method, as long as you have ready access to some sort of duff (sawdust, moss, shredded paper/cardboard, etc). As long as it's covered, it won't stink. Generally, about a 2/3 duff to 1/3 humanure ratio works pretty well. Urine can go straight into the garden. It's great stuff. Just move it around, and water it down if possible. Some folks have toilets designed to separate the two, but I've not tried my aim in one. :P
We're in town, so have to be careful we don't get caught doing certain things. So far, we haven't solved the manure side. I want to build a shop with a bathroom designed specifically for this, without looking like it is. I think the local regulators would be unhappy and impose some form of onerous extortion upon us if they found out.
try it, see what happens, but don't ask me for bail money.
I just remembered another aerobic system I saw that worked well too. It's a wet system that uses a regular flush toilet, but it does have to be elevated at least a couple feet. A lot of houses are elevated anyway, so it's no biggie. But for those of us with concrete foundations, this might not work (unless you want to elevate your throne!).
The toilet flushes into a large enclosed bin outside where it pours over rocks. At the bottom is a pipe system that allows the liquids to escape into what's really just a greywater purification system. It's a sealed planter with large rocks at the bottom, gravel and then a membrane to keep the topsoil from getting into the bottom. There are different ways to do it, but you just plant reeds and grasses in it, to help clean the water. Then it leeches out into another planter where you might plant flowers or whatever, but probably not edibles (just in case). The water going into it would be good, but it's a precaution most take... plus there's the liability factor.
The bin is full of rocks and topped off with logs and wood chips. A bunch of red wrigglers are added to the mix, along with some fruit and other compostables to give them something to eat. The humanure gets caught in the chips and stuff, then the worms will start eating it all up. Eventually it liquefies enough to get through and go through the pipes.
The folks who made it said that it got pretty stinky after the first week, and past two weeks, but then it started balancing out and the stench went away. Now it doesn't stink at all, except maybe when you're opening it up. It has it's own microsystem that maintains itself with the constant input. And you can throw your compost in this as well, if you want.
There's a nice video of this one online, but I can't recall where. Sorry. :(
i know that system has been adopted in some dairy facilities in california to help prevent runoff of effluent materials onto adjacent properties and to mitigate the release of methane gas into the environment. by creating retention ponds that are enclosed with plastic covers, the methane generated is captured and used to heat the water used to clean the animals prior to milking and the milking shed to prevent cross-contamination. unused methane can be stored for other uses or compressed. california requires all dairies, poultry, pig and cattle producers have retention ponds to prevent sewage runoff during rainy weather, but they're not required to be covered! so the smell and associated insect activity causes huge environmental degradation for surrounding properties. even though the retention ponds are now lined, without being covered they often are subject to overflow during heavy rainstorms, which in turn impacts groundwater quality. in this case, what goes around comes around
I can't wait to tell my GF we don't have to spend any more money on fertilizer for her garden! We have all the fertilizer we need! :)
yes, you do! But you'll need to wait two years......
@stellabelle, that's a long time to be sitting on a lot of poopie-poo.
We are gonna need a pretty large storage tank... eek
a lot of mobile tiny homes are now using composting toilets, but i think those use chemicals. i'll have to check it out. perhaps i'll write up something about it and post it
O.O superb article... it was a rolecoster to read it...
As a race we need to use all our resources even our poop .
Our poop can make electric energy so it is very important to use it .
@stellabelle, why do I have the urge to poopie dod-doo now? I have looked into this for years. I've always wanted to be off the grid, but highly unlikely. We can do a lot more to help our environment. Thank youfor sharing.
it does help to be around people who are experiencing/living it. I've been to DR 3 times now, and each time I get more comfortable with transitioning over to the earth side. Part of my issue is that I am lazy. I'm not into gardening and I I'm too addicted to the internet to be living in such a way. You can't be unhealthy and also be surrounded by healthy people! I'd have to hide my digital addiction, which would lead to secrecy which would lead to me being anti-social......
I used to do African drumming at this place that had some composting toilets. They didn't smell.
http://www.bitzia.co.uk/strawdance/
Obviously you need to be careful with this stuff, but it's a resource that should be used. The problem with that comes from most homes is that it's mixed with all sorts of other waste.
I actually just saw an old episode of Top Gear where they powered some cars with methane from cow dung and human waste. We need to be making out waste more useful to reduce the need for fossil fuels.
I remember reading about this is the early 80s. I think the book in the college library was https://www.amazon.com/waste-nations-economic-utilization-agriculture/dp/091667228X
The Waste of Nations, 1980. But great to come across this on Steemit (there's a bad joke there somewhere!) - thank you for posting!
I have noticed your post was flagged by R4fken, well known steemit hater.
I am for justice and I am here with all my Steem Power to help you resist his hate downvotes and let your post be visible for steem users. Upvoted!
I think the major problem is people's squeamishness with this sort of thing.
This is some good shit! <3
I have been using and making dry compost toilets for a few years now. Great way to give back to Nature, as part of the whole Ecosystem 😃
Hey @stellabelle! What a very detailed and informative article! I just posted one on the same topic, but failed to look around to find yours. Never mind, it's still not too late to edit, so I mentioned and linked yours. Here is mine: https://steemit.com/composting/@stortebeker/taking-care-of-business-1-humanure-composting-with-a-bucket