Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

I absolutely agree, pathogens are not a problem.  I have used our humanure 
for nearly 10 years and never had a problem.  I let it compost with dry 
leaves, saw dust, soil, grass, weeds or whatever is available.  After a few 
months it turns into crumbly soil that smells as good forest soil (probably 
because of the leaves).  I usually wait for two years before I use it on root 
vegetables or things like salads that are eaten raw just to be on the safe 
side.  I would never use night soil from other households or from the city 
because people consume all sorts of pharmaceuticals and pour chemicals down 
the drain.  I even separate the toilet paper because of the bleaching agents. 
 

The human body and our surroundings contain billions of microbes, most are 
beneficial, a few are potential pathogens when the conditions are right, but 
our immune system even needs these potential pathogens to build its defenses. 
 There is only about half a dozen of dangerous pathogens like tuberculoses 
that are always harmful, but most of these have been eradicated in the West.

Dieter Brand
Portugal



--- On Wed, 7/21/10, John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net> wrote:

> From: John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net>
> Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Using Human Waste
> To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" 
> <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: Wednesday, July 21, 2010, 10:15 PM
> 
> In my experience I think that pathogens are not at all a
> problem. We have a septic tank overflowing into a small
> water purification area. I have seen all kinds of animals
> drink from that water at different places and not one sign
> of disease has been seen.
> Under good circumstances pathogens are eaten out of a
> living by an overwhelming mass of non pathogens. The only
> way you can select for pathogens is by using man made
> chemicals that often kill off the others. And onfortunately
> that is the paradigm we have been fed with our mother's
> milk. Don't try to kill bacteria for you will fail and don't
> be too clean so as to keep plenty of non pathogen species on
> standby.
> 
> The water that comes out of the wetland shows no signs of
> nitrate or phosphate loss. It is clear and even in little
> pools no algae show up.
> 
> We harvest plants like comfrey and bullrush there and maybe
> 10 more species for animal food. Again never seen a problem
> and how could it? Pathogens are not taken up by plants in a
> cold swamp to be transported to an edible part. That simply
> does not happen.
> john
> 
> > Several people on the list have mentioned the use of
> human waste for agricultural purposes. I'm interested in
> what peoples experience has been with this and what kinds of
> precautions people are taking to break the pathogen-human
> cycles in order to avoid disease transmission. The World
> health Organization has done a lot of work on this and their
> guidelines are available online. 
> http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/wastewater/gsuww/en/index.html
> > 
> > This appears to me to be one of the crucial linkages
> that will have to be established in a steady state economy.
> Nutrient recycling is a fundamental ecosystem
> function/service which must be integrated in the closed
> human-earth system. Of course pathogens have evolved to
> exploit this system and we have to assure a reasonable level
> of safety.
> > 
> > Phil Bunch
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> > 
> > 
> 
> 
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