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  • From: Tommy Tolson <healinghawk@earthlink.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Shit
  • Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 23:15:54 -0500

Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:

Every home could have an attached, two chamber, solar illuminated, solar heated climate-controlled room into which humanure, urine and food scraps are collected & composted and used to grow grasses that are harvested, dried and used
as bedding into which wastes are put. Picture a deep bed of dried hay placed on top of a mixture of good, friable, permeable native soil mixed with rock quarry dusts plus a little rock phosphate. Wastes are put onto the pile, liquified with a jet of water (rainwater collected off the roof, pumped with a solar powered 12vdc electric pump) and allowed to seep into the depths of the pile. Eventually the top layers of hay begin to break down reducing hay particle size. At that point a small rotary aerator (motor powered by same photovoltaic unit) is used to turn new wastes into the pile as a water jet dissolves all solids (except food scraps which can be left on top). Again the slurry soaks into the hay bedding. Liquids seeping out of the bottom of the collection unit are gravity fed to the chamber where grasses are grown. The entire unit would be two chambers, enclosed in small greenhouses; concrete floor and footing, superinsulated concrete block walls with glass or polycarbonate glazing with adequate venting so it will be warm enough in winter and cool enough in summer and with adequate solar illumination to keep the compost alive and aerobic and grow the grass to feed the composting chamber. A feature of the composting chamber would be a side door to allow removal of finished compost, just above the soil-rock dust layer - this would be easy to do. This compost would be the primary fertilizer and compost use to grow the grasses as the liquid seeping out through the soil layer would be very minimal.
A pedestial with seat and squatting foorests would be positioned a few feet above the composting chamber. The horticultural chamber and this chamber would not be isolated. Odors would be minimal or nonexistant. As hundreds of gallons of rainwater could be collected and stored (or in arid zones filled with well water) there would be adequate
water to completely liquify solids in the compost pile after each use. Lacking solar or grid power to operate a pump and compost aerator these processes could be done with a lever operated high pressure water pump and a hand crank aerator
- maybe a bicycle connected by chain to a drive shaft powering the compost turner (both stainless steel). There are many excellent design, materials, construction and fabrication options available for building a system such as this.

Any suggestions for improvements or variations in this design. Its tempting
to build one of these.

Very good. Well thought out. It sounds like this could easily be sized for an Intentional Community and move a chunk of people off the status quo, ecologically insane system all
at once. What's stopping you from building one? I hope you do it.
Tommy Tolson
Austin, TX




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