The Pee and Poo Show

Peak Moment 172: Laura Allen gives an intimate tour of a home-built composting toilet in her Bay Area urban home. The nutrient-rich composted "humanure" is used to enrich the lush, edible landscape, and doesn't waste precious drinking water like flush toilets. The co-founder of Greywater Action shows the throne-like toilet compartment whose distinctive feature is a urine diverter. Pee and poop are collected in separate containers beneath the toilet, and are accessed outside the house. Sterile pee is watered in at the base of plants, while poop is collected in barrels and aged for a year or more until it has composted fully. What a way to go! [www.greywateraction.org]

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• humanure
• composting toilet
• water

[hablerz]

@Auggie56 No , back then raw sewage was thrown from peoples windows into the street every night or was thrown into the local waterway thus causing disease to spread.

She already said in the video that 250 billion gallons of raw sewerage is pumped into the sea from the USA alone. The modern way to treat sewerage is incredibly wasteful and potentially unsustainable. After 2 years this stuff is completely inert, but please look around and find out for yourself.

[phantomcreamer]

When she touched the netting on the new moulderer, it really grossed me out.

[whisperingsage]

If it's too dry it won't compost.

[whisperingsage]

But separating the pee slows down the composting action- the pee is also the nitrogen part of the compost. Why separate?

[Nilyentaraka]

It's amazing that this family could do so much with so little land included in their lot.

[kashmirdanza]

@durgaaa Have you ever heard the expression "he hasn't a pot to piss in, nor a window to throw it out of"? The expression came from somewhere!

[Glomerol]

@Soldier957:

I think the proper heat of the compost (perhaps along with its usual organic breakdown) takes care of it. There may be extra ways to ensure that too. The permaculture folks should know, so try a Google for permaculture.

With regard to this "Victorian" discussion about how they apparently took care of waste; I'm unsure that they had the kind of understanding of bacterial and other health issues associated with waste as we now do.

[Soldier957]

How do you minimize risks with E. coli if you use the compost for your garden? Burn it before use?

[durgaaa]

Secondary to eating is pissing and crapping. I should think that the issue of what to do with excrement would be the second most important survival skill of any group of humans.

[durgaaa]

@hablerz -- I still can't figure why folks simply did not collect in buckets and transport to a central collection point, Can you ? It's so very logical and cleaner. Kinda like you walk four blocks to drop a letter in the mailbox. How could any citizens or city fathers put up with that backward stench and horror. No better than dogs crapping anywhere.

[hablerz]

@durgaaa You can find out more on this interesting topic by searching 'chamber pot England ' on google.

[hablerz]

@durgaaa Only the Roman elite had plumbing , the Rome of the 1st century AD with nearly 1 million inhabitants was not very different from London in the 17th century.

Imagine that kind of populace all packed together with only the most basic facilities, in cramped streets and cramped houses.

Id say slopping out was still happening in the early 19th century in England in certain areas.