Composting toilets

[Guest guest]

> > What does devotees think of using composted human waste as manure?

> > It is being pushed as a rich odorless manure for plants. Composting

> > toilets are coming up in 1000's and the manure is used mainly for

> > cultivation of vegetables.

 

> In fact it is wrong to pass stool and

> urine in agricultural feilds. Yes these thing are not followed even in

> India as of general degradation.

 

Passing stool and urine raw in the field is one thing, letting it compost is

another thing entirely. It is recommended in The Humanure Handbook that when

composting humanure, the composting process takes place over a period of

about a year before the manure is used on crops. Through contact with the

earth, the humanure is purified and becomes virtually non-different from the

earth beneath it, but full of the essential elements conducive to plant

growth. This one-year composting period is recommended for the stool of

(human) meat-eaters, which may contain dangerous parasites, etc. For

vegetarians, the composting period may be less, though I don't know for

certain.

 

 

> In India even goat dung and horse dung is used as fertilizer. It is said

> that horse dung is 3 times more effective than cow dung and goat dung 5

> times. So I was thinking why does scriptures not recommend these things. A

> answer came to my mind and intelligience was that althought the physical

> effect of these other dungs may be more but may be they might be

> increasing Tamo guna and Rajo Guna. Nust like milk of cow and buffallow.

> One increases goodness and other ignorance.

 

All dung must be composted, even cow dung. Using cow dung straight releases

too much nitrogen and will burn plants. Properly composted manure is safe to

use.

 

> Similarly I think human or any other manure might be physically effective

> but the fact that scriptures strongly recommend cow manure means there

> must be some reason which we do not know till now.

> > In urban cities like Kolkata, most of the fresh vegetables sold on the

> > streets are cultivated using untreated sewerage.

> one mistake doesn't justify another mistake.

 

Conceivably cow manure takes less time to compost, and is already pure,

unlike horse, goat, chicken, or human manure. Besides, by using all products

of the cow and bull, we understand their value and refrain from killing

them. It may also be true that cow manure is in the mode of goodness and the

other types are not, but long composting may be sufficient to purify any

manure from a vegetarian animal. [bat guano (dung) is supposed to be a

superior fertilizer, but do we want to collect bat stool?]

 

We don't need to use other manures if cow manure is available, but in the

absence of cow manure, we should not shun the intelligent and proper use of

other manures. There are plenty of resources available regarding the proper

use of different manures, which is better than guessing at what to do, but

we know we won't go wrong with (properly composted) cow manure.

 

ys,tpd

 

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