{"id":3708,"date":"2008-10-12T23:59:11","date_gmt":"2008-10-13T05:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=3708"},"modified":"2008-10-12T23:59:11","modified_gmt":"2008-10-13T05:59:11","slug":"flush-toilets-in-a-green-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/flush-toilets-in-a-green-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Flush Toilets in a Green Home?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"low<\/a><\/p>\n

My daughter and I are guests in a state-of-the-art green home, and I have just finished plunging a clogged toilet on her behalf.\u00a0 I feel queasy.\u00a0Though I only have to do this a couple of times a year, I feel mildly traumatized.\u00a0 Sure, it’s nasty, but the part that bothers me most is the toilet itself.<\/p>\n

The way I see it, flush toilets are a relic of the past.\u00a0They consume precious drinking water and produce a disproportionate volume of toxic, bio-hazardous waste. Even low-flush toilets are hybrid Hummers, a field improvement on a fundamentally bad idea.<\/p>\n

Aesthetically speaking, does anyone dispute that flush toilets are just plain gross? Hey, other than clogging, splash-back, overflows, streaking, and sound amplification, what’s not to like?<\/p>\n

As it turns out, the problems posed by “modern sanitation” are immense,\u00a0but completely unnecessary.
\n<\/p>\n

The Broken Nutrient Cycle<\/h3>\n

It all starts with how that which is taken from the soil is replaced: the nutrient cycle.\u00a0 Sustainable agriculture requires a\u00a0sustainable nutrient cycle.<\/p>\n

Imagine all sorts of food\u00a0being grown on virgin crop lands. Pulling nutrients from the soil, these largely annual crops\u00a0capture energy from the sun in food which gets harvested and trucked off hither and yon, ultimately ending up in our kitchens.<\/p>\n

Visualize yourself and your household.\u00a0 This food, presumably pretty good stuff, enters your body, gets stripped of the energy and various compounds that higher-order life forms require, mixes with your household’s particular mix of flora, and is ready for\u00a0the next\u00a0leg of\u00a0its journey.<\/p>\n

So far, so good.\u00a0 Now, let’s say nature calls, and\u00a0you respond.\u00a0 Stop at this point and (mentally!) survey your handiwork.\u00a0 What do\u00a0you have?\u00a0 Pretty much exactly what was removed from the soil beneath those crops, except in an organically processed form enriched with beneficial flora that, incidentally, pose no danger to you or your family.\u00a0 These are your flora, after all.\u00a0 (If you are sick, however, potentially\u00a0they pose\u00a0a danger to your neighbors.)\u00a0 To\u00a0complete the nutrient cycle, the nutrients in this material\u00a0must\u00a0be returned to the fields.<\/p>\n

If you are holding your breath, it could be because\u00a0the nutrient cycle hangs in balance.\u00a0 More than likely, you’re looking around for\u00a0a match to light.\u00a0 You just made\u00a0a deposit\u00a0into a large ceramic bowl filled with potable water. Yuck!<\/p>\n

Now you flush, sending\u00a0those nutrients down a\u00a0common sewer.\u00a0 Meanwhile, your less enlightened neighbor next door has just scrubbed his kitchen sink with a chlorine-based cleaner and rinsed it — you guessed it — also down the common sewer.\u00a0 Two doors down, another neighbor has just flushed an\u00a0expired prescription medication.\u00a0 Two blocks away, a neighbor infected with\u00a0an intestinal cyst has\u00a0made a deposit\u00a0into the system.\u00a0 Finally, baths, showers, laundry cycles and other daily household activities add thousands of gallons of water to this whole equation.
\n\u00a0
\nWhoa! Your past and\u00a0would-be soil nutrients and a couple of gallons of clean water have now become part of something bigger: a several thousand gallon batch of toxic, bio-hazardous soup. Even if anyone had the desire to do so, the nutrients in this mix\u00a0are no longer fit to be returned to the fields.\u00a0\u00a0This mix has become a\u00a0serious disposal problem.<\/p>\n

The tragedy continues. Back on those fields, lacking nutrients to recharge them, we synthesize\u00a0what’s needed\u00a0from petroleum, consuming still more petroleum energy to achieve this.\u00a0 Alternatively, we fool ourselves with\u00a0an “organic” solution: feeding corn — grown with petroleum fertilizers — to cows to produce manure, and putting that manure on our soil. In other words, we fertilize hundreds of acres with chemical fertilizers in order to fertilize a single acre with manure. All this just to avoid using our own manure!<\/p>\n

Sanitation in Developed Nations<\/h3>\n

Back to the “waste” stream:\u00a0ironically, it’s somebody’s job to get the potable water back out, and detoxify and “dispose” of the other part, the sludge.\u00a0 Unfortunately, because of\u00a0the extreme variability of the\u00a0content and the sheer volume involved, it’s a nearly\u00a0impossible job.\u00a0\u00a0Not through any lack of aptitude on the part of those\u00a0who have\u00a0this unique career,\u00a0it’s rarely done as well as we’d like to think. From this stream we get back two outputs: polluted water, and that nasty sludge.<\/p>\n

Sanitation in Developing Nations<\/h3>\n

People in developing nations also mix their excrement with water; they’re just less predictable about what they do with it.<\/p>\n

According to professionals the world over, life in developing nations would improve dramatically if they would install flush toilets and build modern waste treatment plants.\u00a0 To\u00a0assess the prevailing\u00a0mindset, try Googling “modern sanitation developing nations”.\u00a0 According to the IFDEA website[1], “2.6 billion people do not have access to modern sanitation and have to think about where their waste will go.”\u00a0 Have to think about where their waste will go?<\/em>\u00a0 Geez, what a drag!<\/p>\n

As Joseph Jenkins, luminary\u00a0and author of the seminal and entertaining\u00a0Humanure Handbook<\/a>\u00a0points out, a “waste” mentality is at the heart of the problem.\u00a0 Like trash, waste can’t be recycled.<\/p>\n

The Solution: Composting<\/h3>\n

The only logical replacement for the flush toilet is\u00a0composting.\u00a0 It’s\u00a0familiar to many people, but widely dismissed as unhygienic, impractical, or (in Jenkins’ words) “downright disgusting”.\u00a0 Although the composting toilet may be a victim of poor timing and backlash — much like the solar hot water\u00a0industry\u00a0in the wake of\u00a0the\u00a01970s boom-and-bust solar rebates —\u00a0there’s something more sinister to\u00a0the ferocity behind this push-back.\u00a0\u00a0A\u00a0basic human prejudice is at work.<\/p>\n

Fecaphobia<\/h3>\n

Humans have a natural disgust reflex for some things: death, decay, bodily fluids, and excrement.\u00a0 It’s probably an effective survival trait, or it wouldn’t be with us still.\u00a0 However, as with most reflexes, it’s not always useful.\u00a0 For example, getting dizzy at the sight of blood interferes with our ability to render first aid;\u00a0similarly, gagging\u00a0at poopy diapers definitely doesn’t make one a better parent.\u00a0 Jenkins calls the irrational fear of poop “fecaphobia”.<\/p>\n

Our failure to diagnose and manage fecaphobia causes incredible damage to our planet.\u00a0 It also\u00a0stands between us and\u00a0the possibility of sustainable agriculture.\u00a0 Fortunately, fecaphobia, like other phobias, is readily conquered by individuals who care.<\/p>\n

Composting Humanure<\/h3>\n

Part of the reason that few people question modern sanitation’s lack of progress in the past few hundred years must be that people are\u00a0unfamiliar with just how effective composting is.<\/p>\n

Like cow manure, humanure already contains the thermophilic (heat-loving and producing) bacteria needed to “pasteurize” itself, destroying all known human pathogens in the process.\u00a0 (For complete details of human pathogens and the minimum composting temperature and time needed to destroy them, see Jenkins’ book.)\u00a0 As\u00a0my parents, their neighbors, and people throughout the world have\u00a0demonstrated, as long as the input is of plant, animal or human\u00a0origin, the process is pretty forgiving: even a poorly managed compost pile\u00a0kills all pathogenic organisms\u00a0in due time.\u00a0 Contrary to folk lore, properly composted humane is safe for direct addition to soils for all food crops.<\/em>
\n\u00a0
\nAs Jenkins notes, if you’re skeptical about you or your neighbors’ ability to compost safely, consider this: food-born illness is just as deadly, but somehow, billions of amateur cooks the world over manage to handle food safely and\u00a0avoid killing each other.<\/p>\n

Flush Toilets Have No Future<\/h3>\n

The IFDEA is undoubtedly a noble organization and the point wasn’t to ridicule them.\u00a0 Obviously, the problem in developing nations is not that people are being inconvenienced, it’s that their water sources are contaminated with feces.\u00a0 But equipping the world’s population with toilets, even low-flush toilets, would exhaust available fresh water in many areas.[2]\u00a0 If for no other reason, the “modern sanitation” solution is a non-starter.\u00a0 The major sanitation and sustainability crisis facing developing and developed nations alike is this: feces is still being introduced into water.<\/p>\n

How do we convince humanity to compost humanure?\u00a0 Like everything else, it takes leadership.\u00a0 If FDR were alive, he’d say:\u00a0 “We have s**t to fear, except fear of s**t.”\u00a0 More realistically, it will take grass-roots action.\u00a0 We must ask ourselves, as my daughter once asked, “what’s wrong with the composter?”<\/p>\n

Those neither offended\u00a0nor disgusted by this post are encouraged to look for an upcoming article on building your own inexpensive composting sawdust toilet system.<\/em><\/p>\n

End Notes:
\n[1] From the IFDEA website: http:\/\/www.ifdea.org\/ghr\/Pages\/AccesstoCleanWaterandSanitation.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n

[2] The world’s annual fresh water supply is 12-14,000 cubic kilometers per year, which works out to about 70,000 gallons per capita for a world population of six billion.\u00a0 Arbitrarily assuming it’s safe to tap into about 50% of this for environmental reasons, a low-flush toilet then uses about 12.5% of\u00a0per capita annual water.\u00a0 Given the inequitable distribution of water and the vast demands of agriculture, this is significant.<\/p>\n

Image\u00a0Credit: Johnny Lye<\/a>– Fotolia.com\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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