The Humanure Handbook
A glimpse of the future! This book is awesome, I am going to
write fan-mail to Mr. Joseph Jenkins and begin using the toilet-composting
setup he describes in his book as soon as I’m in a place with an area large
enough to do it in (which readers happens to be in March, so stay tuned to
witness my humanure adventures). I will not be surprised if few of you have heard of this book, books written
about compost are not popular, books written about human shit and compost are
positively ignored, and to my knowledge not written yet, not counting obviously
this most glorious production that I am prattling on about…
So whats it all about?
Well a lot of people have got into the habit of shitting
into fresh water, and then carrying the shit and the water far away to be then
‘treated’ in all manner of ways (most involving chlorined water for people to
drink, and sludge going to landfill), this wasteful and idiotic process uses
ridiculous amounts of energy and leaves us with pollution and problems.
There are too many problems associated with modern flush
toilets and conventional sewage systems outlined by Mr. Jenkins to list here
(just get the damn book!) but the major ones are polluted water and a broken
nutrient cycle, this coupled with ever-increasing population is disturbing
news. Humans will need more and more water and more and more food as time goes
on, but water is currently abused, polluted and already demand is stretched,
while our agriculture is dependent on never-ending manufactured oil hungry
chemical inputs. A point Jenkins makes in the book but which had never occurred
to me is that as population grows, arable soil needs to be left more fertile
each year, to grow more food for the extra people (and food producing systems
need to be more intensive rather than extensive to save space and energy; see
permaculture).
Joseph Jenkins has researched the hell out of and written a
book about, an alternative to current devastating approaches that deal with
human shit. The elegant and simple solution he arrives at every time, and has
practised himself for twenty plus years himself is...Thermophilic Composting.
This is a style of composting that accomodates thermophilic bacteria.
Thermophiles are amazing little beasties (some live at temperatures above and
around the boiling point of water and are apropriately named extreme
thermophiles ), as a by-product of their life processes these little fella’s
produce heat, enough to heat a compost pile up to 70 degrees Celsius (though a
temperature this high is undesirable as it lowers bio-diversity in the pile, a
major factor in compost decomposition)! So how’s it different to regular
compost? Well, Its really just regular composting with special attention paid
to creating conditons conducive to the thermophiles, such as keeping the pile
moist, well aerated and always covered with organic materials over fresh toilet
deposits, materials like sawdust, grass clippings or leaf mould (all this is
very easy and the composting process Jenkins outlines is actually the simplest
I’ve come across as it doesn’t involve turning, wetting down or any
activators).
So we have conditions that are favoured by thermophiles and
they start to eat the contents of the pile. As they do so the generate heat,
this heat is a major factor in the ‘cleansing’ of a humanure compost pile.
Jenkins references studies for days that conclusively show human pathogens are
destroyed after a day to several days of sustained temperatures of 47-60
degrees Celcius.( I have given here a rough outline of the outcomes of these
studies and generalized but that is the gist, please see the book for
references). This ‘thermophilic digestion’ is a major function of the humanure
compost cleansing but there are other factors involved in the destruction of
human pathogens, such as:
·
Competition for food from other microorganisms
·
Inhibition and antagonism by compost
microorganisms
·
Getting eaten by compost microorganisms
·
Anti-biotics produced by compost microorganisms
Remember human pathogens have evolved to live in the human
body, a very specific environment different to that of a compost pile,
consequently they don’t last long out there.
So after the humanure is composted and left to age for a
year Jenkins has a wonderful clean soil additive that is used to grow food and
does not pollute nor waste water in the process. Thus the human nutrient cycle
is kept intact and there is no detrimental effect to the Earth and her waters.
Badass!
Source: The Humanure Handbook.
Jenkins Publishing. PO Box 607, Grove City , PA, 16127, U.S.
of A.
To order phone: 1800 639 4099
