The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure, 2nd edition - Softcover

Joseph Jenkins

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0964425890 ISBN 13: 9780964425897

Publisher: Jenkins Publishing (PA), 1999

Synopsis

The most comprehensive, up-to-date, and thoroughly researched book on the topic of composting human manure available anywhere. It includes a review of the historical, cultural, and environmental issues pertaining to "human waste," as well as an in depth look at the potential health risks related to humanure recycling, with clear instructions on how to eliminate those dangers in order to safely convert humanure into garden soil. Written by a humanure composter with over twenty years experience, this classic work now includes illustrated, step-by-step instructions on how to build a "$25 composting toilet." Also new to the second edition is a chapter on alternative graywater systems; color photos of humanure compost gardens; a review of U.S. state regulations pertaining to compost toilets, graywater systems, and constructed wetlands; and a list of compost toilets sources worldwide. The humor throughout the book, however, remains execrable.

About this title

About the Author

Joseph C. Jenkins has been an organic gardener since 1975, and a humanure composter since 1977. He divides his time between restoring century-old stone roofs, carrying on a trade he has practiced since 1967, and researching, writing, and publishing. In 1998, Jenkins was nominated for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's Three Rivers Environmental Award in recognition of his work with the Humanure Handbook.

From the Back Cover

Humanure: waste or resource? Joseph Jenkins boldly steps where no author has gone before. Considered by many a "moving" book, The Humanure Handbook will surprise you with its timely relevance, delight you with its humor, and impress you with its thorough research. Brilliantly simple, profoundly mundane, this is one book you will never forget. Full of "eye-candy" illustrations, practical information, history, philosophy, and science, it addresses an issue relevant to each and every human being on Planet Earth.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From Chapter 0: As I was writing this second edition of Humanure, I got a phone call from a fellow who was working on a national Community Disaster Preparedness Manual, a project with a federal mandate and federal funding. This project was precipitated by the concerns surrounding the "Y2K" (Year 2000) scenario, which was supposed to be fraught with the wholesale collapse of civilization due to pervasive computer design flaws. Computers would not be able to recognize the beginning of the new century and would just crash. This could result in wide-ranging and possibly prolonged disruptions of electrical, water, food, and fuel supplies, among other things. Or so we were warned.

The authors of this manual had to assume these disruptions could occur for two days, two weeks, or even two months, and the manual had to include instructions for all three of these contingencies. The people working on this problem seemed to be able to come up with stop-gap solutions for every potential obstacle: food shortages (food can be stored), fuel shortages (wood or kerosene stoves can be used as backup heaters), or no lights (candles would work). There was one problem, however, for which no solution could be found. In fact, the fellow on the phone confided that they were considering abandoning the project altogether, because, in the words of many experts in the field, "it can't be done."

What exactly was this impossible problem, you may wonder? In a word - sewage. What do you do when the toilets won't flush? What happens when the water doesn't pump and the drains don't drain? Conveniences like flush toilets are totally dependent upon the electrical grid and completely reliant on a constant water supply. When the electricity is out and water is unavailable, how do you flush a toilet? Answer - you don't.

When this question was posed to the professionals in the field - wastewater treatment managers, waste management people, and sewage experts, they all drew a blank. One suggested that gravity drains would still work; sewage could be dumped down those drains, eventually reaching a wastewater treatment plant. It could then be heavily chlorinated before being discharged directly into the environment. He admitted this would only work for about two weeks until the chlorine supply ran out, after which the sewage would be released directly into surface waters, totally untreated. He also admitted that wastewater treatment plants only keep about a two week supply of chlorine because it is such a dangerous chemical. After two weeks, in a disaster scenario, raw sewage would be dumped into the environment - a situation that usually precedes the spread of deadly epidemic diseases.

Two things came to mind when I talked to the disaster-manual fellow. First, people need to realize that life as we know it won't continue forever. The environmental repercussions of our consumptive, throw-away lifestyles may catch up to us sooner than we think. Computers crashing may look like a Girl Scout picnic compared to global climate changes, cancer, new epidemics, and other calamities that can now be directly linked to our excesses. People also need to realize how fragile their lifestyles are, hanging by a thinner thread than they can imagine. Some power outages and food/fuel shortages could be a wake-up call for many.

Second, I never cease to be amazed at how thoroughly our society has ignored any constructive alternatives to sewage. We've put all our eggs in the flush toilet basket, and when the toilets won't flush, we're clueless. Ironically, it's this squeamish refusal to look at our own excrement that makes it such a threat to our health and safety. If we can't flush it, since we've developed few alternatives, we just dump it. This is a big mistake, not only because we're discarding valuable organic resource materials, but also because we're polluting our environment in the process, perhaps dangerously so.

So I told the disaster-manual fellow that two five gallon buckets and a large bag of peat moss or sawdust will make an emergency toilet for one person for two weeks. If a compost bin and a steady supply of sawdust or peat is available, that toilet could last indefinitely. With proper oversight and management, that person could be in a Chicago high-rise or in a Boston suburb. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The point is that we don't know how to deal with human excrement because we don't see it for what it is. It's not a waste material, it's a resource material. When we see it as a resource, we can understand how to recycle it. When we adamantly insist upon seeing it only as a waste material, we're painting ourselves into a corner. By believing we have to dispose of that waste, we burden ourselves with an increasingly impossible challenge.

The more research I did on this topic, the more I realized there was precious little information about humanure recycling in print. It's no wonder people's faces go blank when confronted with the concept. Although bits and pieces of information were available, they were scattered about in hard-to-find, obscure references. I knew that where there is ignorance, there is misunderstanding. So I have compiled this information and written this book to try to shed a small ray of light onto what is otherwise a dearth of information. I do not claim, by any means, to have all the answers, but I do hope to be able to provide at least a starting point for those who seek information about the topic.

I do not consider myself an "expert." I make no pretense along those lines. But with 24 years of organic gardening and composting experience, I've learned a thing or two which may be of interest to the average reader. I'm sharing those things with you now, and you can digest what you want, and, well, you know what to do with the rest.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jenkins Publishing (PA)
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0964425890
• ISBN 13: 9780964425897
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 302