Humanure

July 2015

It might have started 60 years ago when George Humphris said something about "starving the drains of water".   Sewers need a flow of water,  at a slight angle downward from horizontal,  to keep things moving along.   There had been a drought for weeks,  and a radio personality,  Ted Moult, talked about putting a brick in the WC cistern to save water:  Prince Phillip had made a comment about using two gallons of drinking water to flush away a pint of urine or half a pound of faeces.

George Humphris was,  for a while,  a dairy farmer.   His cattle produced milk,  urine and faeces.   The first he sold,  of course;  there was a great demand.   But the second and third were not waste products:  they were a valuable resource which kept his land fertile and the grass growing.

At one time lavatorial flushing water was drained into the sea,  without any treatment.   Now (2015) it's settled to remove the solids,  oxygenated to remove as many chemicals as possible,  chlorinated to kill pathogens and then recycled as drinking water.   It has been said that the Thames passes through seven people before it gets to the sea.   (In Cambridge the effluent is pumped into the River Cam whence it drains directly into the sea.)

Even so,  we end up drinking chlorine;  enough progesterone (excreted by women taking contraceptive pills) gets past the purification process that record numbers of British men are being feminized,  partially sterilized and getting gynecomastia.

To paraphrase Joseph Jenkins "Why do we still defaecate into our drinking water?"

On a visit to Sweden in the 1960s John and Margaret were given tea by a young man building his own house.   He had built into the house a "waterless lavatory".   The concept struck a chord in two people interested in sanitation,  sewerage,  and compost! It's all about bacteriology.

Then,  fifty years later,  the "flushing" lavatory on the narrowboat began to give up.   In reality,  its waterpipes had become furred with limescale,  and it no longer rinsed the bowl properly.   If the pump pressure was increased,  the pipe joints tended to part:  if the pressure was reduced,  the lavatory would not rinse properly!

Its plywood plinth had begun to disintegrate and looked nasty.

There was no way to know how clean (or,  more accurately,  how unclean) the holding tank had become.   It was tedious to empty and to rinse.

The problem was not helped by a tenant who never learned to use it properly.

Surely there was a better way?

Several subscribers to the Wooden Boat Forum had begun to write about "waterless closets" and "composting toilets".

And then there was the Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins

Chapter 8 (The Tao of Compost) described in detail how to build and maintain a waterless toilet,  and how to compost human manure and urine for use in the garden.

It should be noted that urine from a healthy person is sterile:  it contains no bacteria,  pathogenic or otherwise.   Shortly after excretion,  bacteria from the air contaminate stored urine and use the nitrogenous chemicals for their own growth.   The infected urine smells,  often strongly.

Faeces from a healthy person,  by contrast,  is full of (one might say almost entirely composed of) bacteria.   They have turned undigested food into a state suitable for elimination from the body.   Of the 400 or more species of bacterium present most are perfectly harmless in the bowels of the person from which they came,  but some of them are dangerous,  even deadly,  in the mouth and stomach of the same person or other people.

StJohn is a keen kayaker and canoeist;  he has been a keen climber.   He often camps in wild places,  and carries a small trowel to dig a hole for his faeces:  all wild campers do this.   Covered with a layer of soil and grass,  no faeces are visible to offend the eyes;  no smells escape to offend the nose.   More than that,  many of the micro- and mini- beasts in the soil enjoy the nitrogen and digest the faecal bacteria,  destroying the pathogens along with all the others.   These beasts include beetles,  worms,  fungi and soil-bacteria.   Within days the buried faeces have been consumed and anything which remains is humus;  that black gold for which gardeners build and maintain compost heaps.   By burying them,  StJohn and his wild-camping friends compost their faeces.  Their sterile urine simply soaks into the ground:  its fluid waters the plants and its nitrogen nourishes them.

Compost,  and its main constituent,  humus,  are valuable resources.   If our faeces and urine can be turned into compost why do we use drinking water to flush them to waste?

Perhaps the answer to the narrowboat question was a dry toilet,  similar to that described by Joseph Jenkins?

August 2015

A single 25L plastic bucket arrived from Amazon.   £8.55

The instructions say that 4 are needed,  but let's start with one.

The seat came from B&Q.         £12.50

Needed to be chosen carefully,  as not all seats are flat underneath.

None of them have supports which can be twisted.   Cut off one of the pins and turn them.

The hinges also came from B&Q.

Plywood from Ridgeons. 3/4" (18mm) birch exterior ply.    Wow!     £86

It arrived on Friday,  and was cut into the right sized pieces within an hour or two.
More than half left over for another project,  so,  say £30?
Construction ply would have done the job and would have been cheaper.

A flour scoop came from Amazon (actually,  from China).

It took two days to assemble and paint.

Sawdust is not easy to get,  but compost (astonishingly) is free.   Nip up the A10 to Amey Cespa's recycling place,  turn left at the first roundabout,  then right at the second and help yourself!

Margaret volunteered to try it in her bathroom.
She said it was very comfortable:  just the right height.
She used it almost exclusively for five days.   No offensive sights or smells,  and no flies.   The only smell is the slightly earthy,  natural smell of the compost.
When the bucket was full,  it was emptied into the outdoor compost bin.  Then the whole thing was moved into the instigator's bathroom.   He,  too,  found it comfortable and easy to use,  and used it exclusively for over a week.

Only when both Margaret and John are happy will the system on the narrowboat be changed.