What do we talk about when we talk about poo?

Written by PReck

Wednesday, August 4th 2010

Composting Toilet What do we talk about when we talk about poo?

We should all be responsible for the mess we make. Whether it’s BP, Massey Coal, or your neighbor and her yappy dog’s neat little pile on the front lawn, someone has to clean up the pollution, waste, and feces of modern society’s negligence.

It is the critical task of the 21^st century. All people must embrace the responsibilities of remediating toxicity from our ecosystems and removing waste from the current supply-side market capitalism model of planned obsolescence.

What does that mean? It means that we need to (1) reduce our dependence on synthetic chemicals, (2) expunge the toxic byproducts from our land and water, and (3) end the current ideology that defines so much of our manufactured materials as trash or waste.

The problem is, not only are very few people willing to sort garbage and handle toxic waste, as a society, we don’t know how to talk about pollution or trash or feces. Even writing this, I’m struggling to find the right words to describe human excrement. Sure, everyone has heard their share of fart jokes, but serious discussion about how we dispose of our collective urine and fecal matter is virtually nonexistent.

Changing how we handle poop and pee provides us an enormous opportunity to reverse society’s thinking about what is waste.

At first glance, these toilet humors appear to be the perfect example of waste. I input food and out comes this smelly, unsanitary mess. Yet, the only thing wasteful about our bathroom adventures comes when we mix our feces and urine with potable water. With this unquestioned, omnipresent disposal process, we are actually taking two separate, extremely valuable resources and creating sewage. Instead of being able to use the nutrients in human excreta and the gallon or more of water needed to flush a toilet, we combine them to create a stream of fecal slurry, which requires a multi-billion dollar industry with an enormous infrastructure of pipes and treatment facilities to mitigate the health concerns of feces sitting in the ideal environment to breed germs and diseases. Talk about wasteful.

Down the rabbithole So, like most of the problems in society, we flush it down the toilet, pay someone else to handle it, and wash our hands of the whole situation. Fortunately, not everyone is simply able to ignore the waste of our current sewage system.

Meet George. He’s a young farmer who recently acquired a few acres of land in Central California. There’s plenty of work to be done; the previous residents left the place in significant disrepair, littered with piles of garbage all over. And worst of all, the septic tank is busted. Now, George has a growing pool of sewage in his backyard.

George may not have created this problem, but he sure did inherit it. What can he do? Hiring a professional service to pump and fix the septic tank is one expensive possibility. But, this is a temporary solution that overlooks the larger problem of turning resources into waste.

The busted tank is an opportunity to turn waste into resources. By abandoning the old septic system mentality of dumping everything together, George is ready to conserve his water and harvest his dainty leavings. He is ready for a composting toilet.

Enter the SHIRE outreach crew. After several hearty and comical conversations about the wonders of waterless poo and urine collection, our sustainability consultants went to work.

First we surveyed the raw materials lying around. Plenty of lumber—check. A circular saw—check. A toilet seat—check. Bucket without holes—check.

Identified the site.

Cleared and leveled it.

Constructed the frame and seat—see Nick Moser’s article for detailed plans.

Devised a temporary roof from an old piece of canvas.

Collected and wove wattle through the frame.

Mixed the daub, or cob, then applied multiple layers.

Positioned the bucket underneath and the funnel with attached piping for urine collection.

And the final touch—a shower curtain for privacy.

In two days of work, with only $23 for screws, a fun Cleaning up the act nel, and a short length of plastic tube, the SHIRE crew built George his throne, turning his royal duties into a waste to resources miracle.

This composting toilet is the first step to eliminating waste. It diverts water from the septic pool, creates a continuous supply of rich, nutritious compost and urea, and moves George and his family one step closer to sustainability and personal responsibility.

Last update: August 04, 2010
09:10 am

Published in : Articles, Sustainable Philosophy