E FLUSH TOILET CAN-PEE AND OTHER DELIGHTS Helga Olkowski, one of the developers of biological pest control programs for several California cities, constantly shocks male ~udiences when she talks about fertilizing the amazing gardens at the Farallones Urban House in Berkeley. She merely placed a 5-gallon can with a funnel sticking into it in the bathroom for men to use. Diluting the urine 5 to 1 with water prevented it from burning out the plants, and it was used directly as a high-nitrogen fertilizer. Composting would normally lose much of the nitrogen, and keeping the urine separate from the compost made composting easier! Other simple you-can-do toiletry changes include the legendary brick-in-the-tank idea. It saves 34 million gallons of water per year in Cherry Hill, N.J ., where free bricks were passed out to every home to reduce the water used with every toilet flushing. Bending the float arm will do the same, and save bricks. Or you can remember to flush the toilet when it needs it, not every time you use it. AGRICULTURAL LOSSES: Our sewage is composed of nothing other than our food, which is in turn our agricultural production. The failure of our pre em sewage treatment processes to return the nutrients to the soil that our agriculture removes brings about the present need to use vast amounts of artificial fertilizers. By 1966 Illinois alone used more than 600,000 tons of inorganic nitrogen per year- most of which is produced from nat~ral gas, which is certain to become prohibitively expensive in the not-too-distant future. Although trace amounts of many elements have been shown to be necessary for both plant and human health and are removed from the soil with our harvests, most of today's fertilizer practices ignore return of trace elements to the soil. What was taken from the soil is present in our sewage, and return of sewage sludge to the fields is probably the easiest way to retain the health and productive capabilities of the soil. Sludge provides for both normal fertilization and trace elements, as well as humus. Humus is necessary in the soil for water retention and microbial life, important both in disease resistance in plants and in conversion of minerals to biologically active forms. ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY: Other environmenta! effects of our present toiletry practices are pervasive. On one hand we are running out of room for landfill disposal of sewage sludgethe D.C. Blue Plains Plant produces more than one million pounds of sludge per day. Alternatives such as incineration expose area residents to health risks from airborne lead, mercury, particulate matter and oxides of sulphur and nitrogen. Nitrates formed from nitrogen in urine, of which only 50% is removed in secondary sewage treatment, causes infant cyanosis. Dissolved nutrients not removed from water by sewage treatment lead to eutrophication of waterways and destruction of aquatic life. Health hazards are created by leakage of raw sewage from aging sewage lines, and the dumping of millions of gallons of raw sewage into our rivers from the power failures, equipment breakdowns, pipe failures, employee strikes.and bypassing during flooding or high water to which our complex and centralized systems are vulnerable. It can be questioned whether our pristine sanitary toilets offset the health hazards of our rivers and lakes. Hepatitis and heavy metal poisoning from shellfish in polluted coastal waters are becoming more frequent, as sewers pass on human wastes and give opportunity for industrial plants to dump heavy metals and other dangerous compounds into our water suppli~s unobserved. The solution to these water supply and sanitation problems seems elementary. Body wastes should not be put into the public water supply, and sanitary decentralized sewage processing should recycle our bodily wastes back onto the land. Several new kinds of toilets and methods of sewage treatment that eliminate the use of large quantities of water are now available that can offer us an opportunity to decentralize human sanitation in safe and effective ways. They promise to open up new freedom in use of land for building houses and factories where extension of sewers or use of septic tanks has not been feasible and to reduce the costs and problems of sewage treatment in the future by an order of magnitude. These new systems are of several different types: • Composting toilets- that use no water or energy and depend upon the heat of aerobic composting to evaporate the moisture and destroy pathogens. • Biological toilets- using enzymes and both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria to dissolve wastes which are then usually disposed of in a drain field. • Oil-flushed toilets-which use mineral oil to flush the toilet and carry wastes to a holding tank where gravity floats the oil to the top for filtration and recirculation. • Holding tank system-retaining body wastes in a tank that is periodically pumped by a vacuum tank truck. • Vacuum systems-that use difference of air pressure instead of water to move wastes through pipes to central collection or processing points. • Incinerating toilets-fired by gas, oil or electricity that reduce body wastes quickly to a sterile ash. • Aerobic tanks- a variation on traditional septic tanks that use electric pumps to mix air into the tanks to improve digestion. Can be combined with low-flush toilets. \ These systems provide a range of useful sewage treatment processes adaptable to many varied local conditions and needs and open up new opportunities to resolve the problems of our sewer society. "The Faulty Technology," Ron Davis, P.O. Box 23, Cottage Grove, OR 97424. "The Sewerless Society," Harold Leich, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Nov. 1975. "Another Look at the 5-Gallon Flush," Witold Rybczynski, The Canadian Architect, Aug. 1975. "Of Human Waste and Human Folly," Jeff Stansbury, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1974. "Good-by to the Flush Toilet," Robert Rodale, Organic Gardening and Farming, Nov. 1971. "Living Lightly," Tom Bender, 2270 N.W. Irving, Portland, OR 97210, Oct. 1973. "Flush Toilets," Neil Seidman, Washington Star-News, Dec. 22, 1974. GREEN GULCH PRIVY Toilets can be beautiful as well as sanitary and can create fertilizer instead of pollution. This squat-style compost privy at the Green Gulch Zen Farm outside of San Francisco is proof to anyone who has used it. Sawdust, peat moss or leaves are kept in the box in the center and a handful dropped into the privy after every use to cover and absorb the wastes. Kitchen wastes are also added, the contents composted and taken to the garden for use as fertilizer. • Toto Water Saver FLUSH-LESS TOILETS One of the more clever refinements of conventional toilets is now in common use in Japan. It uses only 2-1/2 gallons of water for a normal flush and, by turning the handle the other direction, uses only one gallon when less water is needed. The water refilling the toilet tank flows through a spout in the top of the tank into a basin for hand washing ing, then fills the tank for the next flush. Saves water, saves space and eliminates the need for a separate wash basin! © April 1976 RAIN Magazine 2270 N.W. Irving, Portland, OR 97210
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz