The Humanure Handbook

 

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