composting toilets & the environmental alternative
Anne said
11:45 AM Jan 27, 2012
In regards to the older post quoted below relating to composting toilets, I recall that while living in Mariposa County near Yosemite a couple decades ago, there was a proposal by a Canadian strip-mining company to mine fine gold that was met with further plans as to how to fill the resulting gash in the earth's surface, and one of the ideas bandied about was to accept heavy-metal-contaminated sludge from black water from the city of LA, which otherwise had no way to get rid of it short of putting it on a boat that would never land (but which most likely would dump it at sea, or else end up somewhere in Africa most likely). Thankfully, the strip mining operation was put on the ballot and defeated (with the mining company having bought off the local politicos and civic leaders as I recall). Composting toilets that work to keep the environment liveable are an invaluable idea.
My poop is not doing any good in a landfill. It will be a resource when we stop traveling, assuming we are in a place where we can "resource" it. Now, my concern is "where will my poop cause the least impact?" In a conventional (house) scenario, I might use the toilet six times a day (more if beer is involved). Pooping and peeing into and flushing away about 10 gallons of drinking water. After that, it is no longer really a resource (although farmers buy the heavy-metal-contaminated sludge as fertilizer for open fields). For two of us, that's about 280 gallons of fresh water in a two week period. As a couple, we have effectively created 1.1 tons of waste that must be dealt with, as opposed to 15 pounds of composting manure.
In regards to the older post quoted below relating to composting toilets, I recall that while living in Mariposa County near Yosemite a couple decades ago, there was a proposal by a Canadian strip-mining company to mine fine gold that was met with further plans as to how to fill the resulting gash in the earth's surface, and one of the ideas bandied about was to accept heavy-metal-contaminated sludge from black water from the city of LA, which otherwise had no way to get rid of it short of putting it on a boat that would never land (but which most likely would dump it at sea, or else end up somewhere in Africa most likely). Thankfully, the strip mining operation was put on the ballot and defeated (with the mining company having bought off the local politicos and civic leaders as I recall). Composting toilets that work to keep the environment liveable are an invaluable idea.
My poop is not doing any good in a landfill. It will be a resource when we stop traveling, assuming we are in a place where we can "resource" it. Now, my concern is "where will my poop cause the least impact?" In a conventional (house) scenario, I might use the toilet six times a day (more if beer is involved). Pooping and peeing into and flushing away about 10 gallons of drinking water. After that, it is no longer really a resource (although farmers buy the heavy-metal-contaminated sludge as fertilizer for open fields). For two of us, that's about 280 gallons of fresh water in a two week period. As a couple, we have effectively created 1.1 tons of waste that must be dealt with, as opposed to 15 pounds of composting manure.