Humanure!?!

[Gello]

Thank you Len! I am sorry to hear about the failing health. Have you read "The Humanure Handbook"? It has a very inexpensive and effective method in it but it takes a good two or three years and involves a lot of hauling. I am in decent health and 35 so I am up for hauling my own waste. I am, also, interested in taking responsibility for my own crap (garbage/waste/etc.). The world would be a better place if more did that.

Oh, btw, I have a interest in permaculture, also. I have Bill Mollison's (sp?) book on permaculture that is a combo of permaculture I and II (I think). It is a big hardback book. Heady stuff. I recently got Holmgreens (sp?) book on permacultue design. Great stuff!!!

Thanks for the thoughtful response. Gello

[len gardener]

g'day gello,

no haven't read humanure book i have it though along with mollesons 'intro' to pc' have had a bit of a flick through that. yes more people should take more responsibility for the waste they create and the un-sustainable demands that they make on this planet. we send very little garbage to landfill tip. there is very little recycling going on at the tip also. at least 1/2 of what we see could be easily composted such a waste of resource.

len

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[John Savage]

I knew a woman who migrated from England. She said that she grew up near a golf course there which fertilised the grass with human waste. She related how every spring local gardeners with hand trowels would descend on the greens to help themselves to the abundant tomato seedlings that sprang up everywhere!

[John Savage]

It is in use in Australia. Formerly, Sydney disposed of its sewage into the sea, causing long dark plumes offshore down the coast and leading to pollution of the beaches when it got washed up during storms. Now, solids are filtered out, dried and sterilised by leading-edge technology, and sold as fertiliser. Most is composted before being spread around on parks, lawns, plantations and the home yard by landscapers. You do catch your breath when passing a park or yard where the fertiliser has been spread, but the odour vanishes after a few days. Its composition is closely monitored to ensure there are no problems of chemical contamination. The recycling/reuse of sewage sludge has been more successful than anyone originally dared hope, and it's a model that the world is starting to follow. I think microwaves are used in the drying/sterilising process.

[flick]

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Microwaves - that's cool.

AFAIK, a week of 150 degrees F will kill the human pathogens, and time/aging take care of it, too, wrt humanure.

The problem with the night soil thing in Asia is 2-fold, as I see it. It isn't aged/composted/heated to kill the bad stuff, and a lot of those people don't have a good clean source of drinking water, so their water's contaminated by it.

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[Anonymous]

What better options would you recommend? Do you know a richer source of organic fertilizer that costs less?

What better use of the feces?

Why pull the nutrients out of the garden and, when we have digested them, send them off to become a problem somewhere else when there is a definite need for them locally?

Bill

[Loki]

il Tue, 18 May 2004 00:32:12 -0400, Anonymous ha scritto:

As you say.

Someone's invented eco-toilets that start the composting process at source. I think the only thing difficult about human waste is the contaminants in it. All those drugs and viruses I believe.

for years. Better that than no more clean waterways. At least plantation foresters know things can take years and it doesn't seem to stop them planting trees. Someone also had no problem using an industry that will take thousands of years to clean up. I wonder why we balk at a paltry few years to clean our own messes up?

[len gardener]

yes bill,

exactly recycling at grass roots level so to speak.

tghe conitioning of modern society dump it puish a button and let someone else look after it then protest when they pollute our waterways with it, and waste good drinking water in doing so..

but even sillier using that same good drinking water to flush coloured water away!!

len

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