The news is reporting that the stench of human sewerage is becoming difficult to bear around Christchurch suburbs and that's no surprise given the damage caused by the quake to the sewerage system that was in place. I've long held that piped sewerage systems are an abomination for what they do, shifting sh*t around towns and cities where it's best kept close to where it was produced, for reasons that are now obvious to the residents of Christchurch.
People generally don't like discussing humanure, no matter how carefully you approach the subject. The question that I'm pondering now is:
how would the situation in Christchurch compare had every one living around the city had compost toilet systems?
Aside from a few spills, easily remedied with a hearth shovel, the effectiveness of the compost toilets would have been unaffected and the quake-shaken residents would have been able to continue to use their toilets without problems and the need to have hundreds of 'portaloos', chemical toilets and holes dug in back lawns to contain the human manure that just keeps on coming, quake or no quake!
I think the potential for an outbreak of disease in those suburbs is quite high. Certainly the smell is described that way. Compost toilets would have prevented all this threat and inconvenience.
What do you think?
27 comments:
I know nowt about them..how do they operate?
How difficult is it to install a composting loo?
They'd get rid of the need to disppose of the contents which is becoming a problem with chemical loos and portaloos.
Cleverly, cleanly, cheaply.
They don't employ water in their process and therefore don't multiply the issues around management. A well run compost toilet turns human manure into quality compost that can be safely put back into the soil and at the same time saves huge quantities of water which in Christchurch was beautiful, potable water that should have been fro drinking, not for flushing. Adopting the 'watercloset' is one on modern man's stupidest decisions. Irrigating farmland is the second :-)
Ele - they are a simple as you would like. There are a range of styles to choose from, from complex and expensive to homemade and elegant. Some are installed indoors, just like the flush toilets, in fact they are pretty indistinguishable. Others can be in purpose-built 'houses'. Some are aided by solar 'driers', others link to worm farms which increase the value of the final product even more. We Westerners are fools to continue with our flushing toilet systems and we have been duped by councils wanting to centralise human manue disposal and have is pay them to do it.
Btw, I'm not talking long-drops here! They are dreadful things that run counter to the idea of composting. Nor am I talking septic tanks. They are downright nasty, in my view. If you are putting manure deeper than 60cm in the soil, you are doing it wrong.
Terry will be all for it, compost King that he is..thinking I may have experienced one on Somes Island?
So RG, practicing what you preach, I take it their is one of these contraptions installed at the Guyton residence? And functioning 100% of the time?
PM - yes to the first, no to the second. When we built, they were not allowed by the local council. We've made our own (easy!) and it operates whenever I have it charged with sawdust and fragrant dried foilage from my herby garden. Presently, we're flushing, but spurred on by your comment, I'll refill the containers and embrace my philosophy a little more closely :-)
PM of NZ - just noticed that you have a link to my blog on your own that you've titled 'Greenie Trougher'.
Why have you called me that?
"Greenie" well if you can't work that one out...
"Trougher" - because you are employed on the ratepayers dime. And I view all such employees as being snout deep at the trough.
Really PM?
I have several paid jobs. I write for the NZ Gardener and other magazines, I teach at the local high school and various primary schools around the region when required, I am developing several heritage orchards on the south coast; planting the trees,releasing them as needed etc. for which I am paid and I present workshops and seminars for all manner of groups on topics like vegetable gardening and propagating native trees for revegetation projects, riparian planting on farms and so on. I'm chairman of two Incorporated Societies (for which I'm not paid, naturally) and I am, as you so rightly pointed out, a councillor with the Southland Regional Council.
Trougher? I'm unlikely to convince you otherwise, so I won't try.
@ Robert; you asked! Interesting post though, but if my wife saw it, she's ask me if I was talking sh*t on the blogs again!
A regional councillor you say?
If such employment is anything like our local regional council and their 'One Plan', I fear you maybe doing "Gaia's work", ever looking for ways to raise taxes and indoctrinate the unwashed, but productive, in matters green.
Inv - ha! She's said that before?
She's got you sussed as well :-)
You need to broaden your Horizons PM.
She says that whenever you've been around Rob :)
PM of NZ is a typical rural ignoramus.
You see, he believes nobody works as hard as him, nobody has earned the right to grouch as much as him, nobody deserves their pay as much as him.
Every rural client (and I mean every) that I have had is a SOB to deal with. They are slow to pay and hard to please, you can work your arse off for weeks on end and it is never ever good enough.
They are the Kings of hypocrisy and double standards, they deny a man the fruits of his labour on a whim.
They are a cancer on NZ values.
Out of the greenish corner, quite unexpectedly, comes the young fighter, Shunda Barunda swinging fit to burst!
Not averse to fronting up when provoked, Shunda employs both fists in a display of gutsy pugalism rarely seen at this venue. the crowd goes wild!
PM of NZ, in the bile-coloured shorts, scarpers.
It'll be time soon, for the 'ring girls' to do their traditional and much yearned-for, barely-dressed walk around the canvas.
A hush falls over the expectant crowd.
Even Shunda un-creases his knitted brow ...
Hey Robert, that was draft 2, the first one wouldn't load up for some reason.
Draft 1 was even better.
SB and RG, no I haven't scarpered. Still lurking here in my clean black shorts. I had to do some work for one of my fast paying non-hypocritical easy-to-please rural customers. Only had one miserly bad debtor type in a decade - would you know, an urbanite. Jeez SB, you seem to have the barrel scrapings of customers. It's a wonder you're still employed by them. And as to your opinion of me, I thank you but beg to differ.
man you really are a cunt
Anon - I'm flattered by your attentions. Please don't feel disappointed if I don't return your compliment.
Robert, isn't it interesting that as election time approaches the tension in the blogosphere begins to escalate.
Why is that? fear? anxiety? demons?
The quake hasn't helped Shunda.
If it is only the approaching election, things could get pretty messy as there's still a way to go yet!
Just to go back to the toilets for a moment... Robert, do you think Joe Jenkins' humanure system would have survived in Chch? I thought it would be pretty easy to set up post quake instead of people digging multiple holes in their gardens, but there are probably many places where the water table is still too high. Or has it dropped again?
Are commercial composting loos quake resistant? I bet there's been work done on this in places like California.
Wildcrafty - there wouldn't be any need for people to deposit directly in the ground if they already had a system in place, especially a low-tech 'bucket' type where the secret isn't complex, just ... a big bucket with dry materials like sawdust or 'pot pouri' of some sort. The key to success is, don't include liquids. Plans need nitrogen and urine has plenty of that. Some of the sophisticated compost toilets have a clever and simple separating design that does the trick or you can go elsewhere first. The second need is for material that can keep it 'airy' and well oxygenated, plus bring in the bacteria needed for 'sweet' decomposition. That's as simple as sawdust. In Chch, a unit would survive most batterings, might just need to be stood up again but as there is no liquid, it's not a bad job :-
There are no pipes to rupture, no litres of water to spill. Far less odour than raw sewerage. I tells ya, it would have made the world of difference!
No Avon full of crap, no polluted ground water, no need for emergency portaloos, no digging holes in the garden an squatting gracelessly amongst the agapanthus.
We have a working composting toilet installed and in regular use since the mid '90s. We have no flush toilet (ie no backup). It works just fine. I believe it is less smelly than some flush toilets I've used, though that is subjective. It isn't like the more modern one pictured. We dug a really deep hole and installed a specially shaped polythene tank (sloping the right way, air vents and a flue to carry off the pong). A key difference is that it requires no electricity to run, which would be relevant to many Christchurch residents. Ours is installed indoors.
We scoop out the sludge from the bottom of the slope every couple of years which is, surprisingly, not at all a smelly job.
Thanks Roger - your description of your compost toilet system and the length of time it's been operating for really illustrates how sound the system is, in my view.
Many people might not have thought about the electricity component of a flush toilet - that is, the pumps that whisk the doinmgs away to that place they never see. When that power goes out, so does the ability to flush!
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