Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

I've started reading this book and find it to be a treasure:

http://weblife.org/humanure/default.html

...
In the United States, humans take flush toilets for granted. You take your dump into a large bowl of drinking water, then flush it. End of story. That's the civilized thing to do. But where does the flushed material go? What would happen if everyone in the world crapped in their drinking water supplies? Why doesn't any other land mammal defecate deliberately in water? Why do we? These all seem like questions any reasonably curious person would ask once in a while. What if the toilet won't flush? Then what? How long can you hold it? People actually crap in ziplock bags and put them in the trash during power outages. Really.

What if I told you that two five gallon buckets and a large bag of peat moss, sawdust, or even shredded junk mail will make an odorless, waterless, environmentally friendly emergency toilet for one person for two weeks. If a compost bin and a steady supply of sawdust, peat, leaves, etc. is available, that toilet could last indefinitely - literally for decades, even lifetimes. The system can be modified to suit a variety of environments and locales, and can be expanded, with municipal support, to conceivably deal with the odorous excretions of any number of human beings.

...

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Where it is labeled "Excrete"
it should instead be "Egest"

Urine is a product of the excretory system.
Feces is a product of the digestive system.
Urine is excreted, fecal boluses are egested.
(It's not spelled "bolii", .... I looked it up).

It isn't nitpicky, if you didn't before,
now you know the difference.

dtnwn

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

One of the best books on sustainable living.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Though human waste (sewage which includes toxic chemicals cleaners) is being used today, my uncle, who is a farmer, once told me human waste should never be used due to the disease it produces. That advice has been handed down through the ages.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

That's the purpose of the book - tells you how to safely destroy the pathogens so you can recycle the waste.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Well, ok, the guy in the illustration
could be pissing as well.
With that in mind check out ... Liquid-Gold

(Amazon links frequently fail to work. Search amazon books for [liquid gold])

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Up here in the midwest it seems that we have always had a product in the hardware and feedstores called "milorganite". Didn't find out till quite recentlly that this is the end product of the Milwaukee sewer system .

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

depends what you eat of course if you eat a lot of hydrated fats your turds will be like plastic and probably be great as recycled milk cartons :rofl: but seriously i was gonna just seal off a room in the house, throw in some pigs, some scraps, after a while they'll eat anything...:rofl: :rofl:

People have tried since time itself not to defecate too near community, water and food production, naturally. But we know a hell of a lot more today about potential pathogens than ever before. In our overpopulated cities it seems fair that everybody be responsible for their own blighters after their brief stop at the s-bend...:wavey:

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

:haha: :haha:.....

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Toilet?! We don't need a toilet! The pile of clothes in the hallway has worked for us for years, and it will continue to work.

The problem with disease in humanure is mostly when you're using waste from diseased people. If you're using your own stuff and process it at a high enough temperature it's pretty safe. I had some guys out working on my septic system and questioned them about the sanitation aspects of their job. They said it had something to do with the way the septic system and various bacteria work to break down the waste, but basically with enough time the product of the septic tank becomes fairly harmless.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Its never an issue in good old usa, we don't have to deal with our own chit.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

I've been doing the humanure deal for going on two years.
I live in a self converted bus so the idea made a lot of sense
for me.
I don't go in a bucket though. I use a Traveler ceramic toilet
that drops into a sealed waste box in the basement cargo area.

Every couple weeks or so I hook up a 3/4 inch hose and flip on
the macerator, which sends the sludge to the compost set up.

It beats a stopped up toilet any day.

There is really nothing foul about it. The compost does not stink.

I plan on recycling my first compost bin this coming spring, after it has
seasoned for well over a year.

My only concern would be the potential for the accumulation of heavy
metals that can concentrate in human feces.

That's one of the reasons I don't eat meat. Toxins and metals are
eaten by the animals lower down the food chain ending up in our
guts and toilets. Along with all the steroids, antibiotics, mercury,
and all the other environmental nasties. Anyway... not to
imply my shit don't stink. :bear_rolleyes:

It's almost stupid it's so simple, easy and effective.

I don't plan on growing my produce with it. Yet. I'll use it for shade trees
and bamboo and assorted shrubs and flowers.

Milorganite is expensive shit. Why buy what you already own.

Figuring out how to deal with our own shit aught to be a no brainer.

Sometimes I think our shit is probably the most valuable thing
humans have to offer the earth, so instead of making it a useless toxic
sludge why not use it to help make the earth green and bountiful. :tee:

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Thats the spirit! Now you are fighting entropy with honour....:applause_

Not using it productively today makes about as much sense as poor plumbing in Rome...:D

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

I thought it was all supposed to "hit the fan" anyway:rofl: :rofl:

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Nice!

Nice paragraph from the link:Ch10

To start one can use your product to fertilize native or ornamental plants and not swallow everything in one gulp by fertilizing your vegetable garden! :bear_grin:

http://weblife.org/humanure/chapter4_4.html

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

above article quote is very good food for thought. Our whole civilisation has thrived on MANIAS and continues to do so today. That our health ammenities have been poorly designed is apropos in this light. We (the masses) are told time and time again about what we can't do, rather than what we are capable of doing.

The Australian Government was aware of the increased frequency of serious drought events back in the late 1980's, but did nothing in planning and let all the water infrastructure go to sh!t. Since then they have passed the buck between the State and Federal governments, all they want to do is centralise it, so they destroy it first, then tell eveybody that there is only one way out; yeah, a lynching...:rofl:

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

The publisher of The Humanure Handbook has a forum:

http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/mes...rd-topics.html

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

How about a short explanation of how to do this. I don't have time to read the entire website.
Thanks

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Basically Jenkins' method is this:
Go to the bathroom in a five gallon bucket. Cover with sawdust (or other biomass)
When bucket is full, empty on to a compost pile. Clean bucket and repeat.
I've read that it it is best to urinate separately. Diluted with water it can be used in the garden as well as the compost from humanure (compost ready after 1 year or so in pile)

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

seems quite interesting I must say. Good info if you have a compund already.


T

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

At work I deal with customers that work for property management companies. At some of the low end places (rental properties) that they manage, some of the people that reside there are very dumb and disgusting.

Instead of calling someone when the toilet doesn't work, they continue to take dumps until a "shit cone" is formed until it topples on to the floor. How would you like to be the maintenance person that has to go into that bathroom, let alone fix that toilet?

I am told this is not an isolated problem.

When I was told this story, all I could think about was cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation. "The shitter's full"

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Of all the blessing of civilization a well-functioning public sewer system, with adequate resources to treat the sewage properly before it is discharged back into the environment, is one that I do not care to do without.

No thanks to composting human feces.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

I currently use a flush toilet gladly. however I find it prudent to know how to deal with humanure in case toilets are no longer an option. jenkins starts his book by addressing the 'fecalphobia' of most Americans. I believe getting most women to shit in a bucket let alone share in carrying and cleaning said bucket is unlikely. One of the main benefits of this method is the conservation of nutrients/minerals that are put back into growing plants/food- look up the Hunza people of Central Asia whose 100+ year lifespans and excellent health is attributed to composting humanure.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

..."topples onto the floor"? :ARMS1:
Disgusting and maybe hilarious, but probably an exaggeration.
If the poop was that high, people couldn't sit above it to add more poop. :smile:

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

This is a "field" I do a lot off work on. Any wet manure, no matter the animal it comes from, will leach valuable nitrates from the ground. If you can dry it to granules or dust, then you have a fantastic fertilizer. Unfortunately here in the UK, we have to pay to have horse manure taken away - �11,000 per year at the place I'm currently designing a system for.
But get this - 80 horses. 400 tonnes a year of horse shit. 150 tonnes a year of bedding.
That makes �115,000 worth of heating, if you compare it to red oil - and they currently only use �90k a year of oil to heat the entire place. �300k for the whole system to be put in place. Not a bad payback period.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

I try to do all my defecation at work where I have to flush. This allows me to go a week between flushes at my apartment. After that point, the chemical smell of the concentrated urine overpowers my desire to save water (and I may want to defecate there on the weekend anyway, so I don't have to go into work). The only real downside is that salts precipitate out on the bowl and require a lot of scrubbing to remove. I don't have company very often so that's not really a problem for me.

My water is included in the rent so there's no financial benefit to me but it seems like an easy and painless way to pitch in.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

very good point

I remember hearing about an e coli out break, and it turned out the Farmers tapped in to some sewer lines for irrigation.....Not good

Don't grow food with it

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

WTSHTF our S will be hitting the bucket and a dedicated (to GWB) compost bin to do its thing for a year.
Then to field crops of beans, corn and squash.
WTSHTF commercial/organic fertilizers may be difficult to purchase.
That only leaves me with my compost pile and a local horse barn for the "good stuff".

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

The whole point of composting humanure for a year is to thermically kill all disease pathogens in the waste. Compost piles reach temperatures upwards of 135 degrees F. After the pathogens are killed through composting it is perfectly safe, in fact beneficial, to grow crops for human consumption with the compost.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Ohhh,,,ok...

Nevermind

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

135 is nowhere near enough to kill most pathogens - that's why using human compost on crop growing land has been illegal for over 30 years. Trust me, don't trust me, or as you like - 135F is nowhere near hot enough to kill even the majority of pathogens.:smile:

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

I have a book called "SOLVIVA" how to grow $500,000 on acre. Anyway, they modified regualr tiolets that flush into a compost bin, break down for a while and make tons of safe and nutirent-dense compost.

True, it's not a good idea to compost any feces from meat eating animals. Notice that the common cow, horse, rabbit, and chicken manure are all vegetarian animals.

As an adjunct, it is also an prudent to not eat animals that eat meat, and this is quite common knowledge amongst indiginous peoples of the world.

Meat eating animals are all acidic on the PH scale. Humans are alkaline by nature, like all vegetarian animals.....

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Ok...See?
Not nevermind

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Actually Chickens will eat meat. and they eat bugs (thats meat isn't it?)

Maybe I shouldn't feed my chickens any scrap Meat?

I don't plan on eating the chickens myself...just the eggs.

But I do plan to and have used their fertilizer

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

[QUOTE=jamesfrancisco;1178964]135 is nowhere near enough to kill most pathogens - that's why using human compost on crop growing land has been illegal for over 30 years. Trust me, don't trust me, or as you like - 135F is nowhere near hot enough to kill even the majority of pathogens.:smile:[/QUOTE



Illegal where? Have you read Jenkins' book? If you have, then you know he addresses this issue and provides test results to back up his claims, along with the centuries of historical evidence of the use of humanure to safely grow crops for food. If you haven't read his book then I suggest you do so before you comment upon it.

http://www.a-spi.org/tp/tp41.htm

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Several years ago I read a scientific study that determined that some human feces were perfectly safe (and even nutritional) to eat (fresh). Not that I'll be trying it anytime soon...even if it came back from the lab marked "safe."

Everything in the universe has some utility. My guess is that any problems with human feces can be easily overcome. In fact, they already have been in large scale...waste from most metropolitan centers is treated, dried, and sold as fertilizer right now and has been for decades.

So, the operative question is what makes fresh feces dangerous as a fertilizer? Probably several potential things, all of which must be looked at and solved individually. I do know that E Coli cannot survive very long out in the wild (weeks? maybe months?). Does that mean year old, composted, humanure is safe? No clue, and I wouldn't simply take the word of someone who uses it. But until I see scientific and engineering analysis to make me feel comfortable that the issues are easily dealt with on an individual scale (ie, worth the effort, with extremely high confidence of safety), I would restrict myself to composting it seperately for the fertilization of nonedibles.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

"Given enough heat, malignant pathogens found in human fecal material will not survive a well designed compost toilet. When using a compost pile in extension to the compost toilet, 135 degrees Fahrenheit is the starting temperature for pathogen annihilation, all the way up to 160 degrees F. More than 160 degrees will usually start killing off the good guys who do all the thermophylic work… Purifying human organic waste materials through composting is a very important tool for the future, since it avoids even polluting our rivers and streams, dealing with our human organic waste in accordance to mother nature."

http://www.compost-bin.org/compost-toilet/

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Cows will eat meat as well, and are regularly fed meat from rendering plants, as well as sick cows that died along side of them. They are also fed newspapers and sawdust. Not saying that they will do any of this naturally, but humans have found a way to make it happen....

I would not feed chickens meat. Some bugs are ok. Same for humans, we would naturally end up consuming some bugs by comsuming vegetation...

Do chickens need meat? NO. Do they need vegetation. YES.

I was kind of assuming that when I typed the word chicken in earlier that someone would bring up the point that chickens will eat bugs...... Maybe I should not have included them in my manure/composting example.... Chicken Manure is the worst of the four anyway, and many people won't use it because it is high in nitrites, likely from the bug consumption....

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Yes, if you take a shat in the woods, it will break down like all other feces and decay into organic matter. Think of all the trillions of times animals have crapped in any forest yet you don't see piles of poop 10 feet high and trees falling over from disease from these animals. Nature has great controls, human intervention des not.

The more we do, the more we find out we don't know $hit, literally.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

If you read Mollison's books on permaculture, chicken and pig manures are an integral part of his methodology. Of course you don't have to use poultry and swine to practice permaculture and I wouldn't. Just as a personal thing- there are non-animal alternatives for protein. If you have a bug problem Mollison would suggest harvesting them for aquaculture/fish food. He also suggests growing colonies of cockroaches to feed fish. That's a bit beyond me.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

That quote seems to suggest that all the potential "bad guys" cannot necessarily be killed off during the composting process due to heat. Even if you could assure of their annihilation due to heat, it would be hard to prove that your compost reached whatever temperature is necessary.

If the duration of the compost pile (ie, >year) cannot guarantee annihilation of the "bad guys" alone, I'd suggest some form of active heating before integration into the compost: it should be trivial to heat the feces above 250 degrees F or whatever necessary temperature. Then integrate it with living compost. Will that solve all the problems with human feces? I'm not sure, because I'm not sure what all the problems are.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

You measure the temperature by sticking a thermometer into the center of the compost pile. Pre-heating your shit before you compost it is not only unnecessary but unpleasant. At least it would be to me. Any man who puts a container of turds into his wife's oven isn't going to be married very long.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Nature is Beautiful isn't it?

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h5...dungbeetle.jpg

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

But how do know all the fecal material reached this temperature? I guess you could carefully place it all in a center layer. And what temperature would it need to hit to guarantee riddance of all the possible bad guys? How long would it need to maintain that temperature?

As for my proposition, I was personally envisioning an outdoor solar oven, not the wife's range :hahaha: but a simple campfire setup would work as well. The smell might not be pleasant, but if I need the fertilizer and this would guarantee safety (I'm not sure that it would), I'd be willing to do it.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

what's left of it....

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Does Mollison have a Phd in microbiology?
No, I haven't read his book - nor have I even heard of it, and I don't intend to seek it out, because it is pretty clearly full of humanure.
Have you never heard the phrase "Don't eat where you shit"?

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

1. Bill Mollison is the internationally renowned co-creator of Permaculture (from "permamnent agriculture") Mollison grew up in Australia which led him to devise a comprehensive way to grow food without damaging the environment and while conserving water and other resources.
2. Joseph Jenkins is the author of The Humanure Handbook. The title of this thread is what it is because the original poster found his book to be "a treasure." You're posting in a thread about a book you've neither read nor heard of and which you don't intend to read. OK................cogent? Not. The original poster put a link to the web site where the book can be read for free. Did you notice or read it? Nope, too busy being smugly ignorant. Read the ****ing book, jackass.
3. I've heard the phrase you mention. What about 'don't shit where you drink?' Someday potable water will likely be a scarce commodity, not one to blithely dump your crap in. Especially when that crap can be used beneficially. Go live in Australia. Water tanks are common. Why? Because their droughts have made water something to be conserved at all costs.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

A degree in microbiology likely would make him less than he is/was.

A piece of paper would prove to you that he did or didn't know what he was talking about?

Yikes....


I know the MD's have an average of 3 hours of nutritional training in medical school. And these are the people that evryone is listening to about what to put in thier bodies. But they got the degree so them must know everything...

Scary....

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

how 'bout shitting in the water that you drink?

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Half of you are fools, half of you seem very intelligent. By the way, I live by a lake, and regularly swim, drink, piss and shit in it. It's never made me sick yet - zebra mussels are fantatic cleaners.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

There's been quite a bit of research done to determine what temperature and for how long a particular pathogen has to be in order to destroy it under various conditions. The survival times of pathogens in soil is dependent on the type of soil, pH, temperature, moisture level, sunlight, organic matter, and other organisms (like bacteria, fungi, & earthworms) that eat and destroy those pathogens. One example from the book is that "Salmonella bacteria can survive for a year in rich, moist, organic soil, although 50 days would be a more typical survival time." Even if it's not composted the survival rate is very low in most soil types. However, it's prudent to compost to guarantee that no pathogens survive to a good margin of safety.

One of the most hardy pathogens is the roundworm egg. It can survive in soil for several years, but is killed in 2 hrs at 131F, 20 hrs at 122F, & 200hrs at 113F. From the book, "One day at 122F is a time and temperature combination yielding total pathogen death for common disease organisms that can be transmitted by humanure." Leaving to thermophilicly compost for a year adds a huge safety margin.

Note also that a large percentage of roundworm eggs survive waste treatment plants and are sent back into the environment to contaminate rivers and cropland that is fed by those rivers. Composting is a much safer way to deal with humanure than sending it down the sewer.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

i don't believe you drink and shit in the same lake,

if you do, would you classify yourself as one of the fools or one of the very intelligent ones?

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

compass: does the book list its sources for its claims? I'm just saying I wouldn't trust my life to a book that obviously recommends it (I'd rather trust my life to a book that abhors the practice) but I would definitely trust my life to scientific consensus (and do so constantly), regardless of how common the practice is or it going against conventional "wisdom." If the book does that (especially if I can find a way to access the referenced studies), I'll look into buying a copy.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

I'd hate to live downstream of you. How would you like it if someone shit on your doorstep? It seems like you choose to live in ignorance and ridicule others that try to live in awareness.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

For small quanities of humanure, I think one could construct an autoclave of sorts out of a 50 gallon drum. Bake the post-poo-pruduct for a couple of hours at 350F, and it would likely be sterilized.

Even if you use humanure for fruit trees, you are still walking around on potenially contaminated soil, and possibly inoculating your garden with undesirable organisms.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

It is very heavily referenced which you can check out online (chapter 7 is the one dealing with time/temperature pathogen survival rates):
http://weblife.org/humanure/references.html

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

he said a Lake...Not a Stream...

I bet there are lots of fish poopin in that lake and other mammals poopin near shore too.

One Big toilet....I don't think I would drink it with out boiling it 1st

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Jamesfrancisco to Wallew:
"Are you going to be a man, and admit that you are wrong, (as sometimes we all are), or are you going to be a child and avoid it, and maybe go and sit in your room? Seriously, suck it up and admit you are wrong, or shut the f*ck up - you know nothing, absolutely nothing, about UK firearms laws, yet you don't have the guts to say "I was wrong on that one".
"Did you look at the Met. Police form pdf. file I gave you a link to? Yes? What is it? It's an application to own a gun - which if filled out, means you can own a gun. Did you read the Wiki information? Of course you did, but you still try and ignore it so that you are "right". You are a prick - and I don't even know you, but someone who does not have the guts to say "I got it wrong", is a prick as far as I am concerned
Can you manage to look up the law? At all? Or are you too plain stupid?
Look - here it is, straight from Wikipedia"




Maddening, isn't it, when someone is obstinately resolved to completely ignore the evidence you present to bolster your case while persistently offering non-arguments? Is this a Brit thing? Crikey you've been here less than one week, quit acting like a teenage troll... you're making me admire wallew of all people.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

"Can you manage to look up the law? At all? Or are you too plain stupid?
Look - here it is, straight from Wikipedia -"
usflag


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanure


Haw.

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Why not make a "greenhouse" of clear plastic sheeting staked over your compost pile? I'll bet temps would get nice and high during the day.

There should never be a need to do something crazy like burn it. Nature does no such thing...

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

you could do that, but you really dont even need to. the heat and microbial life in a compost pile reach enough heat, and digest all the bacteria to make it safe to eat food grown with it

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

Australian climate report 'like disaster novel': minister
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080706...NQQ9ERMccszJV4

Re: Humanure: Composting your own waste
 

A word to the water wise- article


http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Worl...79066-sun.html