Composting+toilets

One of the least logical aspects of modern life is that of taking and purifying huge amounts of water, defecating in a large proportion of it, spending great sums of money to then try to purify it again, but never returning the nutrients to farmland, thus depending more and more on chemical fertilizers that are made and transported with non-renewable fossil fuels. To make things worse, pathogens develop resistance to the chemicals used to treat sewage and substances like antibiotics and artificial hormones cannot reliably be removed or degraded. These are the results of an irrational fear of our own excrement that leads us to do irrational things with it. [] []

[] pee and poo show video =Composting = Food residue and yard trimmings make up nearly one-quarter of all municipal solid waste in the U.S., a large amount that can be useful as composted organic waste. In 2006, one-third of all food residue and yard trimmings (8 percent of total MSW) were recovered through composting. Compost is a rich organic material that can be used to supplement soil for growing plants by providing additional nutrients and minerals. The process can be natural, through the ordinary process of biological decomposition, or created by combining organic wastes with other materials in order to accelerate breakdown. The composting process, unlike natural decomposition, can produce temperatures that will destroy pathogens and stabilize the material. There was a time when individual households and portions of the public sector led the way in composting. It has since expanded into the private sector as demand for products, in the form of landscaping mulch and high-grade compost, continues to grow at the retail level. In the U.S., individual states are responsible for regulating composting facilities, although requirements vary.   Composting

The EPA provides a site to learn about composting, from the basics to how the process works to the environmental benefits.  Organic Materials

In addition to food and yard waste, the EPA provides information on reducing, reusing, recycling ? and rebuying ? valuable organic waste materials.  **References** EPA, Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2006. []

=Humanure = The most wasteful piece of equipment ever devised -- the flush toilet. > ===="Nearly a third of all household drinking water in the US is used to flush toilets" -- Joseph Jenkins, "The Humanure Handbook" ==== > ===="The function of all organic matter, animal and vegetable, is to maintain the fertility of the soil" -- J.C. Wylie, "The Wastes of Civilization" ==== <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;">Journey to Forever founder member Keith Addison composted humanure when he ran a smallholding in England in the late 1980s. "It was completely innocuous," he says. "One day the landlord and his wife visited us from the Big House. We all had tea on the lawn, a few feet away from a big compost unit with a lot of humanure in it. They didn't notice anything -- her ladyship even spent a while leaning against it while we were chatting. The compost temperature in that unit went up to about 70 degrees Centigrade, so it was completely sanitized. It made good compost."

<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">Foundation work
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**The Moule Earth Closet**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">Moule's Patent Earth Commode Pat. 1869 -- Mark Henderson <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">http://www.jldr.com/ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">ohcloset.html || <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;">In 1859 the Rev Henry Moule of Dorset in England decided the family cess-pit was a foul abomination, had it filled in, and told his family to use buckets, the contents to be emptied and buried in trenches in the garden -- where, within weeks, "not a trace of it could be discovered". What could soon be discovered was a "luxuriant growth of vegetables in my garden" -- and that dry surface earth, not water, was the place for "offensive matters". He wrote a pamphlet on it: "National health and wealth, instead of the disease, nuisance, expense, and waste, caused by cess-pools and water-drainage", and became a tireless campaigner for his by-now patented Moule Earth Closet (No 1316, 1860) -- wondrous Victorian-style machines which "flushed" dry earth via a lever, or automatically when you stood up, with luxury models in mahogany and oak. The soil could be dried and re-used up to seven times without offence or nuisance. It was a powerful fertilizer: a neighbouring farmer's swedes grew a third bigger when he used it instead of superphosphates. "Manure for the millions," Moule wrote in a letter to the cottage gardeners of England. Schools used them, and barracks, //The Lancet// wrote of them glowingly, even Queen Victoria had an earth closet (though of course she never had to use it...). But in the end the sheer mindless convenience of the water closet (flush toilet) won the battle -- though perhaps not yet the war. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://www2.exnet.com/1996/01/15/science/science.html
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**"Essays on Rural Hygiene"** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;">by George Vivian Poore, MD, second edition, 1894, Longmans, Green, London.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">Poore's earth tests: earth in the funnel, urine in the top, water out the bottom || <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">Dr. Poore called his book "Rural Hygiene" because "it is in the country alone that it is possible to be guided by scientific principles in our measures for the preservation of health and the prevention of disease. In cities the hygienic arrangements are the results of expediency rather than principle". He quoted Cowper: "God made the country and man made the town." In the country, "the householder is able to make his sanitation complete, and to finish, on his own premises, and to his own profit, that 'circulation of organic matter' which is the law of nature, and the only true basis upon which the science of sanitation can possibly stand firm". His solution involved the daily use of nightsoil in a highly successful system of horticulture developed over 20 years -- in other words, he buried it, and then he raised crops on it. And he demonstrated it was hygienic. "The gardener and the farmer are the right-hand men of the sanitarian." Indeed. The later development of the Indore composting system made these truths just as applicable to the town. Full-text pdf (13Mb) online for free downloading at the Internet Archive: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">http://www.archive.org/download/essaysonruralhyg00poorrich/ essaysonruralhyg00poorrich_bw.pdf
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**"Soil Fertility and Sewage -- An account of Pioneer Work in South Africa in the Disposal of Town Wastes"** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> by J.P.J. van Vuren, with a foreword by Lady Howard, 1949, Faber & Faber, London.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">A detailed and scientific survey of the results of 10 years' labour applying the Indore composting system to recycling town wastes and nightsoil in South Africa. By the time this book was published half a million cubic yards of urban compost a year were being made in South Africa, and being sold at a healthy profit. Van Vuren never loses sight of the ultimate purpose: "Cities and towns have for too many centuries been veritable graveyards where, in most instances, only the charred remains of the youth and life of many a soil --- and ultimately civilization -- lie buried and forgotten. It is our duty, as well as our privilege, to ensure that such destructive, almost criminal, practises are no longer allowed to continue." The book is "Dedicated to the first ten inches of soil." <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;">For an introduction to Van Vuren's pioneering work, see **The Utilization of Municipal Wastes in South Africa**<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> (full text online at Journey to Forever) by J.P.J. van Vuren, Appendix C in "Farming and Gardening for Health or Disease (The Soil and Health)" by Sir Albert Howard.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**Sir Albert Howard** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> always looked to the forest for the perfect model of nature's methods: "The forest suggests the basic principle underlying the correct disposal of town and village wastes in the tropics. The residues of the trees and of the animal life, met with in all woodlands, become mixed on the floor of the forest, and are converted into humus through the agency of fungi and bacteria. The process is sanitary throughout and there is no nuisance of any kind. Nature's method of dealing with forest wastes is to convert them into an essential manure for the trees by means of continuous oxidation. The manufacture of humus from agricultural and urban wastes by the Indore Process depends on the same principle." With techniques and successful applications, in **The Manufacture of Humus from the Wastes of the Town and the Village**<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> (full text online at Journey to Forever), by Sir Albert Howard.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**"The Wastes of Civilization"** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> by J.C. Wylie, 1959, Faber & Faber, London. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">This is a history of the wastefulness of man. It begins with the kitchen middens of Neolithic man and continues through the refuse-strewn streets and pest-ridden houses of mediaeval towns to the clean cities of today -- where we simply try to hide the wastes from view, and try to turn a blind eye to the nauseating dumps, polluted rivers and coastal waters, and the worn out soils which result. "The function of all organic matter, animal and vegetable, is to maintain the fertility of the soil," Wylie writes, and shows how it's to be done, economically and hygienically, through mechanized composting, solving the ancient problem at long last.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**"Fertility from Town Wastes"** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> by J.C. Wylie, with a Foreword by Sir Cedric Stanton Hicks, 1955, Faber & Faber, London <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">"A work of the greatest importance... it cannot be too highly recommended," said Mother Earth in its review of this book. The Spectator praised its "evocative literary quality" -- not something you expect to find in a book about garbage and toilets, but it's a good read. Intelligent and thorough treatment of the nature, value, treatment and disposal of organic and inorganic wastes, cleverly linked to soil fertility and food conservation problems. With work of this calibre done 50 years ago, along with that of Van Vuren and others, it makes you wonder what shred of an excuse the world's municipal and sanitation authorities, and all the other authorities, can offer for the trillions upon trillions of gallons of precious water wasted on sewage, the pollution it causes, the huge areas of land devoted to landfills, the pollution that causes, and the continuing food scares, which relate straight back to the soil fertility problem. Answer: no excuse at all.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">Composting nightsoil and city refuse in China in the late 1970s. || <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**"Composting -- Sanitary Disposal and Reclamation of Organic Wastes"** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> by Harold B. Gotaas, Professor of Sanitary Engineering, Department of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA, 1956, World Health Organization, Geneva. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">"Sanitary treatment of organic waste materials for the protection of health and preparation of wastes for utilization in agriculture are compatible," says Prof. Gotaas. This book discusses "the fundamental aspects of composting, which are the basis for satisfactory processes". Pioneering work was done on composting at Berkeley in the 1950s. Gotaas uses Howard's Indore composting system as the basis for dealing with the sanitary composting of wastes and nightsoil in cities, towns and villages, and on farms, using examples from around the world.
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**History of Plumbing in America** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://www.theplumber.com/usa.html

<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">Modern developments
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**Composting toilet resources** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> at The Compost Resource Page: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://www.oldgrowth.org/compost/

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**City Farmer** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> has extensive links and resources on Composting Toilets -- and they use them on their city farm. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">http://www.cityfarmer.org/comptoilet64.html#toilet

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**"The Humanure Handbook -- a Guide to Composting Human Manure"** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> by Joseph Jenkins, 1999, 2nd Edition, Jenkins Publishing.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">How-to manual on composting human manure. Jenkins is a humanure composting practitioner and organic gardener. Radical (as it needs to be): "Defecating in our drinking water is perhaps one of our culture's most curious, but least talked about, habits." Practical and well researched guide, covers the decomposition process, toilet design, pathogens, use of organic products, and much more. It's a good read too. Includes low-tech systems with plans for a sawdust toilet, using no electricity and minimal water, coupled with thermophilic (hot) composting to destroy pathogens and produce a valuable compost soil conditioner. Illustrated, tables and charts, 304 pages. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">Online version: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://www.weblife.org/humanure/

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">-- "Thermophilic microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi, can create an environment in the compost which destroys disease organisms that can exist in humanure, converting humanure into a friendly, pleasant-smelling, humus safe for food gardens. Thermophilically [hot] composted humanure is entirely different from night soil. Perhaps it is better stated by the experts in the field: 'From a survey of the literature of night soil treatment, it can be clearly concluded that the only fail-safe night soil method which will assure effective and essentially total pathogen inactivation, including the most resistant helminths [intestinal worms] such as Ascaris [roundworm] eggs and all other bacterial and viral pathogens, is heat treatment to a temperature of 55 to 60 deg C for several hours.' The experts are specifically referring to the heat of the compost pile." -- Joseph Jenkins, "The Humanure Handbook"

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;">How to make and use a simple <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**"sawdust" toilet** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;">: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://users.easystreet.com/ersson/sawdust.htm

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**"The Composting Toilet System Book: A Practical Guide to Choosing, Planning and Maintaining Composting Toilet Systems"** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> by David Del Porto and Carol Steinfeld, 1999, Chelsea Green, ISBN: 0966678303 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">David Del Porto has sold and serviced thousands of composting toilet systems and has designed composting toilet and greywater systems for Greenpeace and for developing countries. Carol Steinfeld is a free-lance writer, editor and technology transfer specialist focusing on ecological resource solutions. She is co-founder of the Center for Ecological Pollution Prevention (CEPP). Descriptions of more than 40 systems, covers ready-made and home-built systems, wet and dry toilets, self-contained composters and central units. Features unsaturated aerobic systems, but also covers separation (black and grey and shades of grey water) issues, dry and urine-separating toilets of various designs worldwide, greywater covered in depth, what plants to use to consume the water and nutrients, plus the composting process.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">From the Center for Ecological Pollution Prevention (buying direct from the CEPP helps support their work): <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">http://www.cepp.cc/products.html#CTSBook

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**"The Toilet Papers: Recycling waste and conserving water"** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> by Sim Van Der Ryn, 1995, Chelsea Green, ISBN: 0964471809

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">A classic back in print, with a foreword by Wendell Berry -- informative and irreverent look at human waste through the centuries, and what options are available today. Homeowner plans for several types of dry toilets, compost privies and grey water systems. Van der Ryn is a former architect, sound and elegant designs. "One of the favourite books of the back-to-the-land movement." From Chelsea Green: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://www.chelseagreen.com/1999/items/toiletpapers

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**"Future Fertility: Transforming Human Waste Into Human Wealth"** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> by John Beeby, 1995 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">"Despite all of the knowledge humankind has accumulated in the past 10,000 years, we still do not know fully how to use our urine and manure to fertilize our farmlands in a way that is simple and efficient, will not spread disease, and will benefit the soil. This knowledge is increasingly important as soils continue to lose the minerals and organic matter they need to remain fertile. Discovering how to utilize our waste as fertilizer is the challenge we must meet if our farmlands are to continue to provide us with food." Detailed and practical manual, describes established and innovative low-technology methods of safely and effectively recycling the nutrients in human waste, the principles behind the methods, and criteria to ensure human waste is processed safely and the fertility of the soil maintained. A must for those interested in transforming their waste into wealth in the future. From Bountiful Gardens: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">http://www.bountifulgardens.org/growbiointensive-books.html#7

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**Compost toilets** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> -- 5-page Technical Brief by Paul Calvert, based on his experience designing and building compost toilets in India -- Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), Acrobat file, 284 K <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://www.itdg.org/html/technical_enquiries/docs/compost_toilets.pdf

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**Goodbye to the Flush Toilet** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;">: Water-Saving Alternatives to Cesspools, Septic Tanks, and Sewers, by Carol Hupping Stoner, Rodale Press, 1977, ISBN O-87857-1 92-2, 287 pages. Free download from the <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**CD3WD** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> 3rd World online library, 24.5Mb pdf <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://www.fastonline.org/CD3WD_40/JF/423/17-393.pdf

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**Compost, fertilizer, and biogas production from human and farm wastes in the People's Republic of China** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;">. Ottawa, IDRC, 1978, ISBN 0-88936-140-l, 94p. Editors Michael G. McGarry and Jill Stainforth, translated by Lee Thim Loi from "A Compilation of Data on the Experience and Sanitary Management of Excreta and Urine in the Village", published by The People's Hygiene Publisher, People's Republic of China. Free download from the <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**CD3WD** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> 3rd World online library, 7.8Mb pdf <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://www.fastonline.org/CD3WD_40/JF/432/24-573.pdf

<span style="color: #d42b2b; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">Urine as fertiliser
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica,Geneva,Arial,SunSans-Regular,sans-serif;">**Human Urine Safe, Productive Fertilizer**, by Carolyn Colwell, Washington Post, October 8, 2007 — Cash-strapped farmers shouldn't look far for a source of free fertilizer, according to a new study that finds human urine to be a great source of nitrogen and other minerals. Source: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Oct 31 2007 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801028.html

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica,Geneva,Arial,SunSans-Regular,sans-serif;">**Gee Whiz: Human Urine Is Shown to Be an Effective Agricultural Fertilizer**, by Mara Grunbaum, Scientific American, July 23, 2010 — Researchers say our liquid waste not only promotes plant growth as well as industrial mineral fertilizers, but also would save energy used on sewage treatment. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=human-urine-is-an-effective-fertilizer

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica,Geneva,Arial,SunSans-Regular,sans-serif;">**Guidelines on the Use of Urine and Faeces in Crop Production**, Stockholm Environment Institute, 2004, 43-page pdf, 2.4 Mb <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://www.ecosanres.org/pdf_files/ESR_Publications_2004/ESR2web.pdf

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica,Geneva,Arial,SunSans-Regular,sans-serif;">**Urine Diversion: One Step Towards Sustainable Sanitation**, EcoSanRes Programme, Stockholm Environment Institute, 2006, 76-page pdf, 2.9 Mb <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">@http://www.ecosanres.org/pdf_files/Urine_Diversion_2006-1.pdf

<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times; font-size: 17px; line-height: 25px;">**Best of all!** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular;">**"The Specialist"** <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Georgia,Times;"> by Charles Sale, Putnam, ISBN 0911416005 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">The wonderful story of Lem Putt, country carpenter and specialist builder of privies. Lem actually existed, and Chic Sale knew him, and both lampoons him and respects him as "an artist in his way". Sale was an actor and "performed" this story hundreds of times, and by the time he wrote it (to copyright it in order to stop other actors stealing it) he had it honed to perfection. It's a rare delight. And it's more than that: Lem Putt knew his business. "There's a lot of fine points to puttin' up a first-class privy that the average man don't think about. It's no job for an amachoor, take you my word on it. There's a whole lot more to it than you can see by just takin' a few squints at your nabor's." This is what a water and sanitation engineer who works in developing countries said about it: "If I could recommend one course book for all wastewater engineers this would be it." Not just wastewater engineers -- Lem Putt's fine points should be everybody's fine points. Full text online at the **Small Farms Library**.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">"Now," I sez, "how do you want that door to swing? Openin' in or out?" He said he didn't know. So I sez it should open in. This is the way it works out: Place yourself in there. The door openin' in, say about forty-five degree. This gives you air and lets the sun beat in. Now, if you hear anybody comin', you can give it a quick shove with your foot and there you are. But if she swings out, where are you -- can't run the risk of havin' her open for air or sun, because if anyone comes, you can't get up off that seat, reach way around and grab'er without gettin' caught, now can you. He could see I was right. So I built his door like all my doors, swingin' in, and, of course, facin' east to get the full benefit of th' sun. And I tell you gentlemen, there ain't nothin' more restful than to get out there in the mornin', comfortable seated, with th' door about three-fourths open. The old sun beatin' in of you, sort of relaxes a body -- makes you feel m-i-g-h-t-y, m-i-g-h-t-y r-e-s-t-f-u-l.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Georgia,Times;">-- Lem Putt, Specialist

Recycling animal and human dung is the key to sustainable farming
Flushing the water closet is handy, but it wreaks ecological havoc, deprives agricultural soils of essential nutrients and makes food production dependent on fossil fuels. For 4,000 years, human excrements and urine were considered extremely valuable trade products in China, Korea and Japan. Human dung was transported over specially designed canal networks by boats. Thanks to the application of human "waste" products as fertilizers to agricultural fields, the East managed to feed a large population without polluting their drinking water. Meanwhile, cities in medieval Europe turned into open sewers. The concept was modernized in late 19th century Holland, with Charles Liernur's sophisticated vacuum sewer system.

© Illustrations in red & black: __ Diego Marmolejo __ for low-tech magazine.

** If we recycle our own waste products, fertilizer production would automatically keep up with population growth **

The innocent looking water closet breaks up a natural cycle in our food supply. Basically, it turns extremely valuable resources into waste products. When we grow crops, we withdraw essential nutrients from the soil: potassium, nitrogen and phosphate, to name but the most important. During the greater part of human history, we recycled these nutrients through our bodies and returned them to the soil, via excreta, food trimmings and the burial of dead. Today, we flush them mostly into the sea (see the infographic below, __ source __). This is problematic and unsustainable, for three main reasons. To start, dumping sewage in rivers, lakes and seas kills fish and makes fresh water undrinkable. This can only be avoided by extending the water closet and the already very costly sewerage network with an equally expensive infrastructure of sewage stations (which does not completely eliminate the detrimental effect on water life). Secondly, we need artificial fertilizers to keep our soil fertile. In 2008, almost 160 million tonnes of inorganic fertilizers were used worldwide (__ [|1] __ & __ 2 __). Without these, our agricultural soils would lose their fertility in just a few years time, followed by an inevitable collapse of food production and human population. A third problem is that the water closet logically consumes large quantities of fresh water to flush everything "away". Fresh water production, the construction and maintenance of sewers, the treatment of sewage (and sewage sludge), and the production of inorganic fertilizers are all energy-intensive processes. Nitrogen (which makes up more than half of total fertilizer consumption) is abundantly available in air, but to convert it to a useful form the gas has to be heated and pressurized. The energy for this (polluting) process is delivered by natural gas or (in China) by coal plants. Potassium and phosphate have to be mined (up to depths of several thousands of feet) and transported. It takes more than 150 million tonnes of phosphate rock to produce our current yearly supply of 37 million tonnes of phosphate fertilizer, and 45 million tonnes of potash ore to produce 25 million tonnes of potassium fertilizer. Both operations are energy intensive and pollute the environment. Moreover, while potassium is widely distributed and abundantly available (we have enough economically obtainable reserves to last 700 years at our current consumption rate), phosphorus is not. Ninety percent of global phosphate reserves are only found in a handful of countries, and economically recoverable reserves large enough to meet agricultural demand are estimated to last for only 30 to 100 years. Reserves are much larger if mining phosphates from the seabed is included, but this would be extremely energy-intensive, further deterioriating the sustainability of the food and sanitation system. The only way to get nutrients from sea to land is via marine bird droppings - which is of course in very short supply - or by eating fish or seafood. However, once we have digested our fish and chips, the nutrients filter down to the sea via the sewer network.
 * Water closets are energy-intensive**

The existence of the water closet and the accompanying sewer system is seldom questioned. It is viewed as an obvious technology and generally regarded as a sign of civilization - countries that do not have such a system today are considered retarded or backward. The reason for this is because we have been conditioned to believe that the water closet and the sewer system are the only alternatives to stench and disease.
 * A sign of civilization**

** We have been conditioned to believe that the water closet and the sewer system are the only alternatives to stench and disease **

Following the demise of the Roman Empire (with its early sewers and water closets) and right up to the end of the nineteenth century, the concentrated and unorganised distribution of human excrements in groundwater, city canals and rivers brought recurrent deadly epidemics of cholera and typhoid fever throughout the western world. These were caused by drinking water contaminated with faeces. People answered nature's call on the streets or emptied their honey buckets in backyards, open courtyards, badly sealed cesspools or surface waters - methods that were not conducive to healthy living in densely populated cities. Water closet and sewer system have solved this, at least in the rich world, and nobody wants to go back to the miserable hygienic conditions of those times.
 * [[image:http://krisdedecker.typepad.com/.a/6a00e0099229e8883301348487f124970c-320wi caption="Fertilizing rice seedlings in china" link="http://krisdedecker.typepad.com/.a/6a00e0099229e8883301348487f124970c-pi"]] Chinese agriculture**

However, as obvious as it seems to us today, the water closet is not the only possible answer to the problem of sanitation. There are other, much more sustainable methods to separate human waste from drink water supplies. To start with, the grim sanitary conditions of the Middle Ages and the early Industrial Revolution were a purely western phenomenon. At the turn of the twentieth century in the East, the water in Chinese rivers was safe to drink. The Chinese were as numerous as the Americans and Europeans at the time, and they had large, densely populated cities, too. The difference was that they maintained an agricultural system that was based on human "waste" as a fertilizer. Stools and urine were collected with care and discipline, and transported over sometimes considerable distances. They were mixed with other organic waste, composted and then spread across the fields (illustration on the right). That's killing two birds with one stone: no pollution of drinking water, and an agricultural system that could have lasted forever. In fact, it did last 4,000 years, which is considerably longer than even our most abundant resource - potassium, with 700 years of reserves - will allow. The Chinese agricultural system, which was also applied in Korea and Japan, is extensively described in "__ Farmers of Forty Centuries __", a report of a study trip by the American soil scientist F.H. King. The book was published in 1911, around the time of the discovery of the Haber-Bosch process that would lead to the breakthrough of cheap artificial nitrogen fertilizer. King devoted an __ entire chapter __ to the collection and use of human fertilizer by the Asians. Joseph Needham also gives an account of the method, in volume VI:2 of "__ Science and civilization in China __", citing various earlier sources. More recently, Duncan Brown talks about the Chinese system in his book "__ Feed or Feedback: Agriculture, Population Dynamics and the State of the Planet __".
 * Dung traders**

When King visited China, the population was estimated at about 400 million adult inhabitants, compared to some 400 million inhabitants in Europe and 100 million inhabitants in the US. The stools and urine of those 400 million people were collected in terracotta jars, with air-tight seals. The matter was gathered from every home, from the tiny country villages to the great cities. In some cities, special canal networks and boats were constructed for this purpose (picture below). This was the case in Hankow-Wuchang-Hanyang, for example, a city with almost 1.8 million inhabitants living in an area of only 6.5 square kilometres. You could thus argue that the Chinese //did// have a water carriage sewer network, though the difference to ours is stark. Around the time of King's visit, every year in China more than 182,000,000 tonnes of human manure was collected in cities and villages - 450 kilogram (900 pounds) per person per year. This was good for a total of 1,160,000 tonnes of nitrogen, 376,000 tonnes of potassium and 150,000 tonnes of phosphate which was returned to the soil. In 1908 Japan, 23,850,295 tonnes of "humanure" was collected and given back to the soil. Shanghai traded and distributed the yield of its inhabitants over a specially designed canal network using hundreds of boats (see map on the left, click to enlarge), a trade that brought in 100,000s of dollars every year. Human manure was considered a valuable commodity. In 1908, a Chinese business man paid the city 31,000 dollar (this would be more than 700,000 dollars today) to obtain the right to remove 78,000 tonnes of humanure per year from a region of the city to sell it to the farmers on the countryside. In Japan, which was much more urbanized than China, people paid less rent when they left their landlord better quality excrements. King describes loads of human dung taken from Tokyo and Yokahama "carried on the shoulders of men and on the backs of animals, but most commonly on strong carts drawn by men, bearing six to ten tightly covered wooden containers holding forty, sixty or more pounds each". On the Japanese countryside, it was not unusual to see signs that invited passers-by to please answer nature's call on site. The farmers used the product to manure their fields. The practice of recycling human dung in Asian countries repelled some foreign visitors. The Portuguese explorer Fernam Mendez Pinto __ wrote in 1583 __: > "You must know that in this country there are many of such as make a trade of buying and selling mens Excrements, which is not so mean a commerce among them, but that there are many of them grow rich by it, and are held in good account. They which make a trade of buying it go up and down the streets with certain Clappers, like our Spittle men, whereby they give to understand what they desire without publishing of it otherwise to people, in regard the thing is filthy of itself; whereunto I will adde thus much, that this commodity is so much esteemed among them, and so great a trade driven of it, that into one sea port, sometimes there comes in one tyde two or three hundred Sayls laden with it." (sic) The 4,000 year old closed-loop system vanished with the arrival of artificial fertilizers, which were imported from the West during the first decades of the twentieth century. Today, China is the largest consumer of inorganic fertilizers with 28 percent of total world consumption. Asia as a whole now uses more than half of the world's artificial fertilizer.
 * Night soil collection in Europe**

The collection of human "waste" also occured in Europe, be it for a much shorter time and on a much smaller scale. The second half of the nineteenth century marked the end of a predominantly agricultural period in Europe; migration to the cities accelerated and the problem of sewage disposal got much worse. At the same time, health experts started to realize that cholera and typhoid fever were the consequences of drinking contaminated water. Since agriculture was increasingly short of animal manure, it appeared that both problems could be solved at the same time. The first system, which was set up in several countries and cities, is generally known as "night soil" collection and reminds of the Asian method. Dung and urine were accumulated in movable wooden receptacles beneath the privy seat and mixed with earth, ashes or charcoal to prevent offensive odours. Night soil collectors came by at more or less regular intervals (mostly at night, hence the name) to pick up the merchandise. See picture above (__ source __) and below (__ source __). This happened either by emptying the full tubs into a cart and giving them back immediately (which meant the cleansing had to be done by the users), or by placing the full tubs in a wagon, switching them for fresh ones (which meant the cleansing had to be done by the scavengers). The empty tubs were replaced under the privy seat, and the cargo was transported via horse and cart to a collection point outside the city. There it was converted into compost for use in agriculture. Unfortunately, the collection and transport of the waste was not as reliable, efficient and sanitary as was the case in China, Korea or Japan. All was good when air-tight containers were used, but this was not always done. When open carts were applied, the transport caused waste and foul smell (see the 19th century cartoon below, __ source __). Sewage was spilled while carrying the tubs down the stairs and while emptying them into the carts. Moreover, the collection did not always happen that frequently, especially in poorer neighbourhoods. Nevertheless, the wooden tub system was an improvement over the comparitive disorder of nightsoil collection in Europe. Throughout the Middle Ages, so-called dung farmers gathered human and animal excrements from streets, backyards and cesspools and sold these to farmers who applied them to their fields. The problem was that these scavengers needed to collect enough dung before they could sell a cartload. Duncan Brown cites Cipolla, who describes the situation concisely: > "The most pathetically tragic aspect of this business was that of the people, whose poverty was so abject that they collected the manure they found in the streets where they kept it [at their homes] until they had accumulated a sufficient quantity to sell." There were exceptions, notably in Flanders, where an organized nightsoil collecting system that reminds of the Chinese method was set up as early as the Middle Ages. Around the town of Antwerp, the management of organic wastes (human excrements, dung of city horses, pigeon dung, canal mud and food scraps) had become a significant industry by the 16th century. By the 18th century there were great stores along the river the Schelde where the excrements from Dutch towns were transported by barge.
 * The vacuum sewers of Charles Liernur**

A second collection method was pioneered by Dutch engineer Charles Liernur in 1866 (__ patent __ - pdf). His vacuum sewer system combined the comfort of today's water carriage sewer network with the ecological and manurial advantages of the earlier scavenging methods. A closet inside every home was connected to an underground small diameter pipeline infrastructure, and the stools and urine immediately left the house following deposition.

** The Liernur system combined the comfort of today's water carriage sewer network with the ecological and manurial advantages of the earlier scavenging methods **

The crucial difference with today's technology, however, was that the Liernur system did not use water but atmospheric pressure as a transport medium. This meant that it avoided the dilution of the manure by the admixture of water, thus preserving its value as a fertilizer - which was Liernur's explicit intention. On the other hand, the vacuum sewer system did away with the need for scavengers to visit every house, lugging around buckets of poo and pee, and disturbing everyone's sleep. It was a clear improvement on the night soil systems, including the one used in Asia. Several Dutch cities were equipped with the Liernur system: Leiden in 1871, Amsterdam in 1872 and Dordrecht in 1874. Initially, only a couple of thousand homes were connected to the vacuum sewer network, but in Amsterdam the system was expanded substantially. At the end of the nineteenth century, about 90,000 Amsterdam inhabitants were linked to the Liernur sewer network, some 20 percent of the population. In Amsterdam and Leiden, the system remained in operation for almost 40 years. The Liernur system was also introduced on a smaller scale in Prague (Czech republic), Trouville sur Mer (France), Hanau (Germany) and Stansed (England). The system in Trouville, installed in 1892, was operated until 1987 (__ source __, pdf). Today, the method is still being used in ships, trains and airplanes. The French designed their own version of the Liernur system - the Berlier system. It was introduced in 1880 for a trial period in Lyon, where it successfully removed sewage over a distance of four kilometres (2.5 miles). In 1881, a five kilometre network was introduced for trial in a Paris neighbourhood. The French took the trials very seriously: the sewage was observed by placing glass pipes at various points. The Berlier system, which was technically superior to the Liernur system, worked flawlessly: the thousand soldiers in the barracks of Pépinière, where it was in operation, were the only troops in Paris that were not affected by a serious typhoid epidemic. In spite of the technical success, the Berlier system never ascended beyond the experimental stage. The Dutch Health Advisory Board advised a general, national introduction of the Liernur system in 1873, following the successful operation in Amsterdam, but this did not happen either. Liernur designed plans for other cities in Europe (Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Munchen, Stuttgart and Zurich) and in the US (Baltimore), but these were never realised. There were several reasons why the pneumatic systems did not became the standard sewerage systems of today. Firstly, there was the arrival of the water closet and the waterworks. In the Netherlands, a growing number of people connected a water closet to the Liernur system, diluting the stools and urine in such a matter that their agricultural value declined considerably. Even before this happened, the sale of the sewage for use as manure did not give the profits that were expected. Health experts advanced that profits should not be the first aim of a sanitary system, but the problem was that Liernur himself had stressed financial profits as an important advantage of his system. This had attracted investors, and they promptly left the technology behind when they started to lose money.
 * The arrival of the water closet**

** The installation of a vacuum sewer system is twice as cheap as the construction of a traditional sewer system **

An important problem, not only in the Netherlands but throughout the western world, was the growing size of cities. Both the night soil system and the more sophisticated methods were eventually beaten by the logistics of maintaining the practice in huge cities supported by far away farms. The last blow for the vacuum sewer system was the appearance of inorganic fertilizers after a cheap production method was found in 1910. The shortage of fertilizers in agriculture was "solved". Because cities had started building water carriage systems for the discharge of storm drain water, the next logical step was to allow the discharge of sewage via the same network. Basically, this was a step backwards: excrements were again drained on surface waters, not necessarily in the immediate surroundings but a few miles further downstream. It took another 70 years before sewage stations became (relatively) common in the rich world. If we want to restore the natural cycle of our food supply, there are only three technological possibilities. We could develop a modern variant of the scavenging method using composting toilets, in which the stools are collected from individual homes together with other organic waste products. Urine could go to a separate tank that is emptied once a year by a tanker (this method exists in some Dutch and Swedish residential areas where people use so-called urine separation closets). Or, we could develop a modern variant of the Liernur or Berlier system, in which the sewage is collected automatically, but without the use of water. Vacuum sewer systems have found a limited application in some new housing estates since the 1960s and 1970s. A few hundred systems are in operation in the US, the UK, Australia, Germany, the Maledives, Southern Africa and the Middle East (__ overview __). The installation of a vacuum sewer system is twice as cheap as the construction of a traditional sewer system. A vacuum system is also faster to construct and easier to maintain: it consists of much smaller diameter tubes that have to be laid less deep into the ground - a __ narrow trench __ in the road-surface suffices. There is a third techno-fix, but it is many times more expensive than the other two: using the diluted sewage from our water carriage system as a fertilizer. Basically, this adds another layer of costly infrastructure and complexity on top of an already very costly and complex system. Diluted sewage not only has to be dried, but also purified. This is because sewage sludge does not only contain human waste but also many other (including toxic) waste resources, both from households and factories. Interestingly, when we remove urine and excrements from the sewer system, we might as well eliminate the water carriage sewer system altogether, further obtaining substantial cost and energy savings. There are workable alternatives for the removal of storm water (basically __ reducing paved surface __) and for the __ local treatment and re-use of grey water __. Human faeces and urine can only be used as a fertilizer following further treatment. This was an already known fact by early Chinese agricultural writers, who warned that untreated humanure could "burn and kill plants, rot the shoots and harm human hands and feet". Today we know it also carries more severe health risks. F.H. King and Joseph Needham praise the composting efforts of the early Chinese, who often combined their privy with the family pigsty (see illustration below). However, Duncan Brown is more critical of their composting techniques. The health advantages that the Chinese gained by keeping their drinking water supplies clean, were partly offset by the transmission of diseases via food crops: > "Gastro-intestinal diseases were endemic throughout the region. In Korea and Japan, fluke diseases were common because of the practice of eating raw fish grown in ponds fertilized with human excrement. But those diseases could have been largely avoided with a better understanding of their nature and modes of transmission. If properly used, devices like the relatively modern sceptic tank, the more modern oxidation tank or the so-called composting toilet can avoid the danger of gastro-intestinal diseases previously associated with the use of human excrement as manure." A process of composting should always come first, and this can happen in two ways. The first - slow composting - is a do-it-yourself technique that is explained in the "__ Humanure Handbook __", an online practical guide by Joseph Jenkins (who coined the term 'humanure'). Slow composting happens at low temperatures and takes about one year in a moderate climate. To be secure, most say the resulting (odourless) compost should only be used for growing crops where there is no direct contact between food and fertilizer (like fruit trees) and for inedible plants (flowers, houseplants). The second method is composting at high temperatures, which goes much faster and results in a fertilizer that can be applied to any kind of food crop. It is an industrial process, which is being applied successfully in several countries for a number of years. Interestingly, the first step of this process also generates electricity, further improving the sustainability of the whole system. Since 2005, a factory of the Dutch company__ Orgaworld __ composts diapers (from babies and elderly) together with many other kinds of organic waste. It is a high-tech process that takes about 6 weeks and results in a high-quality compost, free from pathogens, medicines and hormones. The company has also built two factories in Canada and is building plants in the UK. Can we produce enough natural fertilizer to substitute for synthetic nitrogen and mined potassium and phosphates? According to the figures collected by F.H. King, an adult person produces on average 1,135 grams of dung and urine each day. How much nitrogen, potassium and phosphates does this contain? That all depends on the diet. From the China of 100 years ago, King cites different research results, ranging from 2.9 to 6 kilogram (5.8 to 12 pounds) of nitrogen per person per year, 0.9 to 2 kilogram (1.8 to 4 pounds) of potassium per person per year, and 0.4 to 1.5 kilogram (0.8 to 3 pounds) of phosphates per person per year. At present, the world population is estimated at 6,800,000,000 people. Let's assume they all have a similar diet as the early 20th century Chinese and that the highest figures given by King more closely resemble today's diets (reliable present-day figures are hard to find). This would mean that the total world population could produce 40.8 million tonnes of nitrogen, 14 million tonnes of potassium and 10.4 million of phosphates. Is that enough to eliminate the need for artificial fertilizers? At first sight, no. Today's artificial fertilizer production is: However, we humans have "outsourced" a considerable amount of dung production to farm animals. A large amount of artificial fertilizer is used to produce livestock feed. These animals produce much more manure than all the people on the planet. Livestock excreta in 2004 were estimated to contain 125 million tonnes of nitrogen and 58 million tonnes of phosphates (there are no figures for potassium, which we will further ignore). That's 3 times more nitrogen and 6 times more phosphates than can be found in humanure. Animals played a minor role in the Chinese humanure-based agricultural economy, but the European farmers in the Middle Ages relied heavily upon livestock for manure, which was their main fertilizer. Animal manure was never wasted. Joseph Needham cites Fussell: > "European farmers of the 15th to 17th centuries, both high and low, had one main worry, manure. They dared not neglect any source of supply, however minute, for the success of every crop they grew depended largely on the amount they could accumulate for use. They were willing to undertake the labours of Hercules to build a sufficient dunghill". There are many good reasons to cut back on meat consumption, both for our health and for the environment - livestock production is also the main driver of deforestation (in its turn a major driver of soil degradation). However, if we don't want to give up our high meat consumption, the least we should do is "to undertake the labours of Hercules to build a sufficient dunghill". It would not only save us the effort to produce an ever increasing amount of artificial fertilizers, but it would also stop the devastating ecological consequences of dumping 91 million tonnes of nitrogen and 49 million tonnes of phosphates into the environment every year. Most of this is discharged without any treatment, illegally, or legally by overdosing it on fields near cities as a cost-effective waste management practice. There is another source of natural fertilizer material that is being wasted - food scraps. In this case, too, we turn a valuable resource into a waste product. Food scraps could be fed to animals like pigs, greatly __ improving the sustainability of meat production __. But, instead, we feed them grain. Of all the food scraps produced in the US, only 3 percent is currently being recycled. The rest ends up in landfills, producing large amounts of greenhouse gases. There is also a large potential to lower demand - one of the main problems with today's fertilizer use is overconsumption. Artificial fertilizers are cheap and as a result farmers prefer to dose their crops with too much fertilizer, instead of risking not using enough and lowering their yields. This means that more nutrients are lost through soil erosion, runoff and leaching - which also pollutes groundwater, rivers and seas, because these nutrients do not pass through sewage stations.
 * Only three future possibilities**
 * Composting**
 * Can we feed the world using humanure?**
 * 99.9 million tonnes of nitrogen, or more than double the amount that all people could possibly produce (40.8 million tonnes)
 * 37 million tonnes of phosphates, almost 4 times the amount that all people could produce (14 million tonnes)
 * 25.8 million tonnes of potassium, or more than 1.8 times the amount that all people could produce (10.4 million tonnes)
 * Livestock**
 * Food scraps & management techniques**

** The main problem is not that we produce inorganic fertilizers it's that we don't recycle them **

Things were very different in the early Chinese agricultural system and during the European Middle Ages. There was never a surplus of fertilizer, so farmers applied it thoughtfully. With more careful techniques, today's farmers could get the same yields with the use of much less fertilizer. The use of crop rotation, intercropping and green manure, all historically important techniques which are still being applied in today's organic agriculture, could further reduce the demand for fertilizers.
 * Nutrient balance**

Let's digest all this information for a second. On the one hand, we have livestock and people, who together produce 166 million tonnes of nitrogen and 72 million tonnes of phosphates. Almost all of this is wasted, wreaking ecological havoc. At the same time, our factories produce 99.9 million tonnes of artificial nitrogen fertilizer and 37 million tonnes of phosphates. A completely superfluous operation that further increases pollution and consumes vast amounts of energy. With the expected human (and livestock) population growth, not to mention the rise of energy crops to make __ [|biofuels] __, both biological and artificial production will rise even further, making everything only worse. We have more than likely already passed the stage where humanity could be sustained without inorganic fertilizers. It is, after all, artificial fertilizers that caused the population boom of the 20th century. However, this should not be a problem. The large amounts of human and animal dung include nutrients which originate from inorganic fertilizers, since we all eat food that is largely grown by means of inorganic fertilizers. It is estimated that humans have already doubled the amount of nutrients in the global ecosystem. Thus, the main problem is not that we produce inorganic fertilizers it's that we don't recycle them. Even if we only consider livestock manure, there is enough natural fertilizer available to sustain almost 7 billion people. There is also no taboo when it comes to utilising animal manure, so why don't we use it? Nutrients recovered as animal manure and applied to agricultural lands were estimated globally at a mere 34 million tonnes of nitrogen (28 percent of total) and 8.8 million tonnes of phosphates (15 percent) in 1996. The amount wasted thus equals (for nitrogen) or surpasses (for phosphates) artificial fertilizer production. This is the consequence of an industrial and intensive meat and dairy production system that is operating on a global scale. In many countries cattle eats fodder that is produced on the other side of the world. So, in order to close the loop, we would have to ship the manure back to where the fodder comes from. The FAO __ writes __ (pdf): > "Even if livestock is raised on the same continent as where its feed is grown, the scale and geographical concentration of industrial feedstock production causes gross imbalances that hamper manure recycling options. High labour and transport costs often limit the use of manure as organic fertilizer to the direct vicinity of the production facilities."
 * Logistic challenge**

** If we recycle our own waste products, we have to ship them back from the place of food consumption to the place of food production **

Of course, the same can be said of human manure. Just like livstock, humans are geographically concentrated in large cities with no farmland in sight. Just like livestock, we eat food that is often produced far away from where we live. This means that if we choose to collect humanure, we have to ship it back from the place of food consumption to the place of food production. Consequently, recycling nutrient elements would bring along a massive logistic system consisting of trucks, trains and ships transporting dung (or pipelines transporting sewage) all over the world. We are not saying that every ounce of dung should be sent back to the place where the food was grown - this is impossible and ridiculous. What counts is that there is a balance between import and export of nutrients. Countries that export food should also choose to import (other) food, instead of dung, yielding the same result and increasing the dietary variety. All we would essentially need is a sophisticated nutrient accounting system. The fundamental solution, of course, is to produce food more locally. This would not only do away with the shipping of manure, but also with the shipping of food. If livestock production would be geographically more diversified and mixed with cropland, all the animal manure could be used and artificial fertilizers would not be needed. If cities were smaller and distributed more uniformly throughout farming country, the logistics of returning humanure to farmland would be greatly simplified. Of course, this 'decentralisation' of the human population goes against the notion that densely populated cities are more sustainable than a more uniformly distributed population. The challenge may not be to abandon Suburbia, but to make it more self-sufficient. © Kris De Decker (edited by Shameez Joubert) © Illustrations in red & black: __ Diego Marmolejo __ for low-tech magazine. Many Thanks to __ Sietz Leeflang __, inventor of the __ Nonolet __ (an urban composting toilet - __ building plans __), who spent two years convincing me to write this epos on shit, and referred me to most documents listed below. Sietz also inspired me to write about __ [|oven stoves] __ (which took considerably less effort).
 * Decentralisation of the human population**




 * Sources**
 * "__ Farmers of Forty Centuries __", F.H. King (1911) -- dung recycling in china, korea and japan
 * "__ Science and civilization in China __", Vol VI:2, Joseph Needham (1984) -- idem
 * "__ De geschiedenis van de techniek in Nederland - de wording van een moderne samenleving 1800 - 1890, deel 2 __", H.W. Lindsen (1993) -- the liernur system (in Dutch)
 * "__ [|Feed or Feedback: Agriculture, Population Dynamics and the State of the Planet] __[[image:http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=lowtemagaz-20&l=as2&o=1&a=905727048X width="1" height="1"]]", Duncan Brown, 2003 -- the nutrient cycle and how to restore it (great book!)
 * "__ The history of sanitary sewers __" (website) -- the liernur system and other early sewer systems
 * "__ Proposed plan for a sewerage system, and for the disposal of sewage __", PDF, Samuel M. Gray (1884) -- the technical options at the end of the 19th century
 * "__ Humanure Handbook __", Joseph Jenkins (2005 - third edition) -- diy
 * "__ The nitrogen dilemma: is America fertilizing disaster? __", Tom Philpott, Grist (2010) - inorganic fertilizers
 * "__ Livestock's long shadow __", PDF, Food and Agriculture Organisation (2006) - figures of livestock dung production
 * "__ Production and use of potassium __", PDF (1998)
 * "__ Inorganic phosphorus and potassium production and reserves __", PDF, T.L. Roberts and W.M. Stewart, in "Better Crops" (2002)
 * "__ Environmental aspects of phosphate and potash mining __", PDF, UNEP (2001)
 * "__ Peak Phosphorus __", James Elser & Stuart White, Foreign Policy (2010)
 * "__ Scientists warn of lack of vita phosphorus as biofuels raise demand __", Times Online, June 23, 2008
 * "__ The voyages and adventures of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, a Portugal, during his travels for the space of one and 20 years in the kingdom of Ethiopia, China, Tartaria, etcetera __", Ferdinand Mendez Pinto (1583).

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