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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] human urine as fertilizer

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  • From: "Lisa Rollens" <rollens@fidnet.com>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] human urine as fertilizer
  • Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:26:03 -0500

Dick, Have you read Solviva, by Anne Edey? You can also get additional info at solviva.com She designed a flushable composting toilet...right there on Martha's Vineyard, that seems to be a great solution to the problem. Black water drains away and solids go into a carbon source (chopped leaves) with earthworms. Apparently everything decomposes at an incredible rate, even in winter. As a matter of fact, I think I am going to send for the plans and try it. Down here in southern MO we have Karst topography and the soil drains too well...right down to the underground water...nitrogen and all. Check it out. Lisa


----- Original Message ----- From: "Dick Pierce" <dickpiercedesigns@gmail.com>
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 9:45 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] human urine as fertilizer


Thanks for the dialogue, interest and opinions. I'm afraid that I didn't say
it well enough - Martha's Vineyard is a small island off the coast of Mass.,
USA. The overwhelming majority of sewage is processed by septic systems at
individual homes, no island-wide septic/sewage. "Individual" in my
context is meant to convey an individual household.

I fully agree that Bears do it [right], and humans can also - pee/poop in
the woods. The "cat scratch" is also an elegantly simple way of nature worth
emulating. And, the Orchard Toilet is a good model from this. I'm all for
difusing waste into nature and natural processes - want us all to move
toward that. Also believe fervently, as you do, in moving away from large
quantities of human waste that is collected [and neglected or] handled by
industrial processes.

My start on this path is to separate my [individual] urine and use it to
help my comopst along - a very individual-family and natural process - or to
dilute it and use it as fertilizer on our family garden. My plan is to move
away from [or never join] large, industrial processes for anything. I also
plan to read/study further on what is and stays in urine and what is and
stays in poop - both good/bad and what Nature can/does break down to
good/harmless and what it can not.






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