GOOD-BYE TO 1i TOWARDS A SEWERLESS SOCIETY "Common sense is turning out to be right-bodily wastes should not be put into the public water supply." Two major developments are moving us rapidly towards abandoning our present sewage treatment systems and towards developing a sewerless society. As our population grows and our resources diminish, the monetary costs and health hazards of our present systems are rapidly becoming unbearable. On the other hand, a whole spectrum of alternative waste handling techniques have been developed that provide more effective and less costly treatment of human wastes without increasing health hazards. Together they demand revaluation of current waste treatment policy directions. The flush toilet is widely considered the very symbol of modern sanitation and progress, yet it entails vast expenditure of money and resources and creates widespread health and environmental problems. Adverse effects of present sewage disposal systems include the following: HAZARDS OF WATER REPURIFICATION: Not keeping our wastes out of our drinking water requires us to spend billions of dollars in futile efforts to separate the sewage from the water and repurify it for use downstream. Present water repurification systems depend upon the addition of chlorine to the water to kill disease-causing bacteria. Though chlorination will kill bacteria, it is ineffective in preventing disease transmission by viruses, such as those that cause infectious hepatitus, polio, intestinal flu, and other related diseases. Such water-borne viruses get into our water supply primarily from our body wastes. Recent studies in the Mississippi River Basin indicate that chlorination used to kill bacteria from toilets upstream combines with the bacteria and chemically polluted water to produce carcinogenic substances in the drinking water. Chlorination is also suspect as one cause of heart disease. Chlorination is a violent form of "controlling" disease and, like antibiotics, is very likely to be more dangerous to us in the long run than to bacteria. Both chlorination and antibiotics merely speed the creation of more resistant and dangerous forms of the disease transmitters they attempt to control. This has already resulted in the need for increasingly massive doses of chemicals to control the bacteria and is reaching the point wh~re both the diseases and their controls are becoming increasingly deadly to our own survival. Aerosol propellants are being blamed for damage to the atmospheric ozone layer that protects us from harmful ultraviolet radiation, yet there are indications that greater blame lies with the vast quantites of chlorine added to our water supplies. Chlorine reacts with our waste water to produce volatile chloroform, which enters the atmosphere where it can react to destroy ozone. When we realize that Washington, D.C., alone uses more than three and a half million po!1nds of chlorine every·year, the amount of freon-type aerosol propellants that have been useu are relatively insignificant. The simplest way of avoiding these hazards is to keep our sewage out of our water supply in the first place. WATER USE: Water is becoming increasingly scarce in many parts of the country due to increased population and consumption, changing climate patterns, pumping of underground water tables and vast demands for irrigated agriculture and energy production. In one year, each of us uses and contaminates more than 13,000 gallons of water to carry away only 165 gallons of body waste-using five gallons of water every time we flush the toilet. Half of the water used in every home is used merely to carry away sewage. Such practices may be impossible to continue-the 1985 sewage flow estimates of Prince George's County, Maryland, exceed available water supplies for the area by more than 321 million gallons per day! The creation of expensive water reservoirs, aquaducts, water purification systems and the diversion of needed water from agriculture and other uses can be avoided by use of sewerless systems. ENORMOUS COSTS FOR SEWAGE COLLECTION AND TREATMENT: A task force led by Ralph Nader found that in spite of expenditure of more than $3.5 billion on new sewage treatment facilities over the last 15 years, the level of filth has not been reduced in a single major body of water. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than $38 billion-in addition to all past and present investment-is needed to clean up our sewage. And that wouldn't solve any of the eutrophication of our rivers and lakes. Complete sewage treatment for one small river basin-the Potomac-will cost more than $1,5 billion in addition to paying for present investment and the cost of replacing aging sewers. And installation of new sewers (not including treatment) to replace failing septic tanks for 1200 suburban homes in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., will cost more than $4,400 per home. Simpler and less expensive means are available, but being fought by sanitary engineers who face loss of commissions on sewage treatment plants. Muskegon, Michigan, has installed a system for recycling sewage onto farmland instead of dumping it into the water supply. By comparison with a conventional chemical water treatment system such as at Salt Creek in Chicago, the Muskegon system costs $1 per gallon of capacity to build vs. $1.50 per gallon for Chicago, and only 12¢ per thousand gallons to operate vs. 40-80¢ per gallon for Chicago. In addition, the Muskegon system is expected to generate $240,000 to $360,000 in agricultural profit per year by 1990, plus revenues from sludge sale amounting to $300,000 per year. The energy consumption of present sewage treatment processes are considerable-plans to enlarge the Blue Plains sewage plant in Washington, D.C., call for use of 2 million kwH of electricity, 500 tons of chemicals and over 100,000 gallons of fuel oil per day to treat 309 million gallons of sewage contaminated water. If we were to stop using our drinking water to dilute and transport that sewage, it would reduce the volume to be processed by NINETYEIGHT PERCENT! SQUAT! The traditional squatting posture is common throughout the world and has repeatedly been demonstrated by medical authorities to be healthier and easier than sitting on a can as we do. (See The Bathroom, by Alexander Kira, 1966, Bantam Books, $1.45, for the low-down.) Squat toilets are especially better than our conventional ones where public toilets are not kept clean, as there is no contact with the toilet itself. Squat designed flush toilets are available for applications connected to central sewage systems. • Turquo Any sewage recycling system that puts garbage and human waste directly back on the land would be frowned on as wasteful by people in many countries. A large percentage of the food energy we eat is passed on undigested in our wastes, and garbage fed daily to pigs is hardly less appetizing than when served on our plates. In India, in South America, in China and in some parts of Europe, privys are designed as masterpieces of ecological sanitation. They have two entrances-the normal one and a second one at the rear for pigs. It may be a little disturbing sitting there with nothing but a hole in a plank separating your more delicate parts from several hundred ---.... ---... pounds of hungry bacon. Any apprehensions are quickly dispelled as you realize that the fruits of your effort are being highly appreciated. The pigs view us, of course, as we view honey beesas someone to be thanked for going to ' so much work to prepare fine food delicacies for us!
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