Would you believe me if I told you we are flushing our most valuable resources down the toilet?
It’s simple: we eat, therefore we poop. And though we think of and treat this excrement as waste, it is full of the same nutrients we pump into our diets. Poop has in it water, potassium, phosphorous and nitrogen. Also included are thousands of beneficial bacteria that live to eat and decompose our waste. When given the opportunity to decompose naturally, our poop turns into soil that is healthier than what you can buy at a local nursery.
It just so happens that water, potassium, phosphorous and nitrogen are essential nutrients needed to grow food. Farms use tons of energy-intensive synthetic fertilizers to feed their crops, when instead they could use soil created from nutrient-rich human waste, also known as “humanure”.
It’s not only essential nutrients we flush each time we go to the bathroom. Even the most efficient toilets flush 1.5 liters of potable tap water down the toilet. For those of us in Alameda County, that is 1.5 liters of pure snowmelt from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.
Yep. We poop in water we could drink!
So, where does this contaminated water go after we flush it down the toilet? Most toilets in developed areas are hooked up to sewage lines. To clean the water you pooped in, sewage treatment plants pump chlorine and other toxic chemicals into the wastewater. After multiple disinfection and de-chlorination steps (because chlorine is, believe it or not, poisonous for our environment), the water and contaminated sludge are pumped into rivers, deltas, lakes or ground water. In the bestcase scenarios, the treated wastewater and sludge are used in agriculture after further disinfection and after synthetic nutrients are added, where the toxic chemicals still manage to pollute the environment. At worst, sludge is dumped directly into our waterways. Now that’s a waste!
But it’s not only water and nutrients we are wasting. The U.S. spends $4 billion annually to produce the energy needed to power centralized sewage treatment plants. That’s three percent of our total energy budget.
Would you believe me if I told you we can safely and sanitarily capture nutrients in humanure without contaminating water or spending billions of dollars?
Composting toilets look like flush toilets, but instead of flushing excrement down pipes, a ventilated container collects it. Biodegradation set in motion by our thousands of natural body bacteria then generates enough heat to kill harmful pathogens and viruses as well as evaporate 70 to 90 percent of the original mass.
Worried about smell? Just add carbon-rich material (shredded paper or sawdust) after each use, and be sure that oxygen circulates through vents in the container. Amazingly, carbon and oxygen produce an odor-free composting toilet!
As it fills, the container must be emptied onto a compost pile where it decomposes for a few more months, after which it is ready to be incorporated onto gardens or farms.
In place of clean water, energy, and tax dollars, a small amount of labor on the side of the homeowner can make functioning composting toilets a safe, viable alternative to our current wasteful, toxic and expensive human waste management processes.
Benefits of composting toilets are being realized around the world. In lieu of a nonexistent sewage infrastructure, developing regions create composting toilets to save money and fertilize crops. But even more developed countries — Sweden, for example — have implemented composting toilets in homes for decades to reduce water use and rebuild soils. New Zealanders have constructed largescale composting toilets in commercial buildings that generate soil and nutrients to grow enough food for the people who work in those buildings.
State laws require habitable buildings to have flush toilets and say that human waste can’t be transported across property lines without a license. Waste management officials, city planners and public health authorities in the U.S. still have much to learn about the use of composting toilet systems in urban areas in order for us to take full advantage of our poop.
It’s time American cities work with state and federal public health officials to create more homeowner-friendly composting toilet regulations that encourage people to make better use of our poop and our water resources. Our soils, waterways, and budgets depend on it!
Gwendolyn von Klan studies geography and sustainable urban planning at UC Berkeley.
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What the fuck is wrong with you? Jesus Christ.
What about the pharmaceuticals that are passed through the body. The drugs that we take are not entirely absorbed by our bodies, and are
excreted and passed into waste. The effects, if
any, these chemicals have on human health (and environmental health) must be considered.
Small correction – Hetch Hetchy water goes to San Francisco. East Bay gets its water from EBMUD whose main sources are Mokelumne River also in the Sierras. Small but important detail. There is SOOO much we could do with gray water, recycled water, and different approaches to waste! The biggest issue in CA remains irrigation water, which uses about 85% of available freshwater supplies. A large portion of that is used to irrigate alfalfa hay – a very low-value crop. We need to use our precious, clean drinking water supplies for the most high value uses!
Gray water for handling sewage and human waste makes sense. I don’t even have a problem with gray water for such applications as watering foliage along freeways and other applications where it is not introduced into the human food chain. However, the idea of everyone composting their own excrement is is sheer lunacy and an epidemiological disaster waiting to happen. More proof that the environmental movement has more than its share of kooks.
It does seem absurd to use so much good Hetch Hetchy water in toilets when there are viable alternatives. It would be interesting to know what U.S. cities are looking at modifying regulations to facilitate the use of more composting toilets.
I have to poop right now, what should I do?
Go outside!
And poop in the opinion author’s garden.
The smells near older conventional sewage treatment plants (there are many) can be pretty awful, too.
[As it fills, the container must be emptied onto a compost pile where
it decomposes for a few more months, after which it is ready to be
incorporated onto gardens or farms.
In place of clean water,
energy, and tax dollars, a small amount of labor on the side of the
homeowner can make functioning composting toilets a safe, viable
alternative to our current wasteful, toxic and expensive human waste
management processes.]
Are you seriously proposing that we go back to using “night soil” to fertilize crops for human consumption? Obviously you have never been (or smelled) anywhere where this is done, or you certainly wouldn’t be advocating it…
Tony, yes. However, unlike the “night soil” you are referring to, humanure that has the time necessary to biodegrade on a compost pile with a proper carbon:nitrogen ratio doesn’t smell. I have experienced this first and, and I hope that more people in developed areas can as well.
Smells not the only issue. Do some research on this history of London, England over the last 1000 years, and you might learn what happens when you let human fecal matter contaminate your groundwater supply.
Actually, you are referring to fecal-oral contamination via surface water, and contamination by raw sewage rather than composted, processed waste which has undergone a process of composting which kills pathogens. There are plenty of places in the world where sewage treatment is still inadequate, if it exists at all, and the composting toilets discussed in this article would be a viable alternative. More importantly, in low-density settlements our current flush toilet system is a ridiculous waste of water. This is not to say that composting toilets are a panacea but I highly recommend that you start doing some research of your own. Start with “The Ghost Map” by Steven Johnson – this will really help you with your London example – and “Infections and Inequalities” by Paul Farmer.
How is your composting toilet working out for you?
Nah, this isn’t for the self-designated elite, who will still have their perks while they force the rest of us to give up what we have to obtain their nutty eco-utopia. Al Gore certainly hasn’t given up his private jet or SUVs, and I’m willing to bet this sanctimonious bimbette will still be using flush toilets in her home but feeling good about herself for forcing everyone else to go outside at 3AM to use the crapper.
I”m quite familiar with the whole story about the cholera outbreak being traced to a single water pump, but it’s obvious that you’re missing the point. We’re not talking about composting toilets in some third world or rural setting. We’re talking human waste in a high-density urban environment where we ALREADY have effective sewage treatment in place. You want to step BACKWARDS in technological progress – how idiotic.