Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[yarrow@sfo.com]

Title: Re: [Livingontheland] soil and water crisis

I works in cities, too!! I know someone who has been using some version of the sawdust toilet and backyard composting (with a recent graywater system) for a dozen years, in Oakland, Calif.

Even without a sawdust setup, it's really easy to collect "liquid gold" and use it in the garden, or (discreetly) even take it to the community garden.

It makes so much sense. Makes a lot more sense than purifying huge volumes of water to potable standards, only to use it to flush waste. Meanwhile, technology exists to purify water better, which would be economical for the quantities used for drinking water.

As for "wiping," much of the rest of the world uses water (with the left hand or as a stream from a bidet), not paper, which turns out to be more sanitary than paper or other wipes. Always followed by washing hand with soap, of course.

At 4:28 PM -0400 5/9/08, Michael Kaer wrote:

As a side note to the issues discussed, I have a partial solution, one that worked in the past and with our better knowledge can work even better. Stop flushing our waste down the toilet. ....I do not have a solution for cities, since I do not think they are sustainable.

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