toilets of the future

[Guest guest]

I have had a two hour meeting with the Environment Agency at their Cornish

Office in England.

 

So far they are very impressed with such a cheap and efficient way to

dispose of human waste as proposed for camp sites at the Eclipse 99 event

and for show grounds in the future. They are keen to learn more as there are

restrictions on landfil next century for organic wastes. 76% of waste

produced by Britain is organic.

 

They have questioned the use of human urine as a fertilizer on agricultual

fields and told me that I would have to seek approval with South West Water

authority on this.

South West Water's principal scientist has since confirmed that there is no

difference between applying human urine and cow urine to the land. The same

conditions must be met.

The solids that come from the toilet itself, layered with the medium of

sawdust and humus (micro-organisms) is he considers, "treated" to some

extent and is not completely raw. So when composting has been undergone with

the suitable addition of the carbon element he feels that there will be no

problem whatsover in this being applied to the land. He did add that the

Environment Agency may require testing for heavey metals in the end product,

as he said that even sewage from the general public can contain copper from

toadys water pipes and some aluminium ingested from other sources, but he

didn't think this would amount to anything serious. If we send samples to

their office they can analyse for a fee of 30 - 50 pounds.

 

The whole concept of treating sewage with water is a serious problem as at

the end of this year no more sewage can be tipped into the sea. Therefore

more water will be required to treat it and water tables are

dropping....Also the restrictions on organic wastes going to landfill could

prove to be a boon as the combination of the two is the perfect senario.

 

Therefore open heap thermophylic dry composting technology could be a

serious answer to the problems of waste disposal in Great Britain. We now

have the support of Peter Harper who is going to Sweden, where they are very

much into the same thing, to encourage the change in the regulations for use

of human effluent (from such uncontaminated sources) in ORGANIC agricultural

practice.