Re: Mind's Eye Re: Green Issues (might make some 'green')

Blackwater irrigation (septic/toilet) is a controversial topic in the
US, apparently even greywater (washing/sinks) can be. If I remember
correctly a large amount of the nitrogen in urine is from breathed
nitrogen, kinda neat how that works. Ammonia and methane are also useful
fuels, biofuel digesters have been used in poor rural areas of the world
and large livestock businesses are getting in on it now too. I've had
some tell me that dry composting can take care of pathogens in a year (a
buddy) but I would prefer the recommended three year cycle myself in
controlled batches. Now growing on top of a contained bed is another
matter, plants rooting into it should act as a biofilter, using gravel
leaching beds covered with some sand and wood chips to prevent
contaminants gaining contact to food, creatures or maintenance and handlers.

Potty training cows didn't turn up any positive results though, that
would make a big impact! I haven't seen many small enterprise ideas
Neil, mostly the latrine and bucket method or people diverting greywater
or my idea of integrating septic fields (a tricky one though).
Municipalities would be a great application but all the cities are
interesting in the fastest process and dump method here in the US. Is
the UK processing for use or to dump? No pun intended. ;-)

On 2/25/2013 12:44 PM, archytas wrote:
> We have large scale versions in the UK - the muck is treated and
> pathogens removed. It was once called night soil here. Quite what
> precautions are taken in India is a bit scary. My point largely
> concerns the possibility of a 40% fertiliser reduction and how many
> more examples could be drawn into an economic plan. Fishing gear is
> being changed to do less damage to the sea bed and reduce the
> ludicrous amount of stock dumped at sea because it doesn't match rules
> on what can be landed - pilot projects have reduced 'throw back' from
> 37% to less than one.
>
> On 25 Feb, 11:12, gabbydott <gabbyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Interesting. I've had this issue categorized under "the fresh water waste
>> in toilets". There are some much greener solutions on the market.
>>
>> 2013/2/25 rigs <rigs...@gmail.com>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Isn't this called "night soil"- no pun intended. What about the
>>> spreading of disease via human/animal waste?
>>> On Feb 24, 1:43 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> You produce some 500 litres of urine and 50 kilograms of faeces a
>>>> year. Besides the water and organic carbon, your annual output
>>>> contains around 10 kilograms of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium
>>>> compounds, the three main nutrients plants need to grow - helpfully in
>>>> roughly the correct proportions. This is sufficient to fertilise
>>>> plants that would produce more than 200 kilograms of cereals, says
>>>> Christine Werner of the German development agency GIZ.
>>>> Scale that up and the world's population excretes 70 million tonnes of
>>>> nutrients annually. Applied to fields, this could replace almost 40
>>>> per cent of the 176 million tonnes of nutrients in chemical
>>>> fertilisers used by the world's farmers in 2011 - from New Scientist.
>>>> There are loads of ways to redeploy human waste - from planting a
>>>> banana tree so it roots under the latrine hut to large sewage
>>>> treatment (an entrepreneurial solution can be found in India - they
>>>> are know locally as honey-suckers). I wonder how any such areas we
>>>> could identify and get into action projects under an international
>>>> project system run on an enterprise basis?
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