Indeed, it does. This is an apt form of source separation. Joel
At 12:56 PM 3/1/09 -0500, you wrote: >This article makes a nice sidebar to Tom Shelley's TCLocal piece on >waste treatment last month. > >Jon > >================================================================== > >The New York Times >Op-Ed Contributor >Yellow Is the New Green >By ROSE GEORGE > >Woolley, England > >IN the far reaches of Shaanxi Province in northern China, in an >apple-producing village named Ganquanfang, I recently visited a >house belonging to two cheery primary-school teachers, Zhang Min >Shu and his wife, Wu Zhaoxian. Their house wasn't exceptional -- a >spacious yard, several rooms -- except for the bathroom. There, up >a few steps on a tiled platform, sat a toilet unlike any I'd >seen. Its pan was divided in two: solid waste went in the back, >and the front compartment collected urine. The liquids and solids >can, after a decent period of storage and composting, be applied >to the fields as pathogen-free, expense-free fertilizer. > > From being unsure of wanting a toilet near the house in the first >place -- which is why the bathroom is at the far end of their >courtyard -- the couple had become so delighted with it that they >regretted not putting it next to the kitchen after all. > >What does this have to do with you? Mr. Zhang and Ms. Wu's weird >toilet -- known as a "urine diversion," or NoMix (after a Swedish >brand), toilet -- may have things to teach us all. > >In the industrialized world, most of us (except those who have >septic tanks) rely on wastewater-treatment plants to remove our >excrement from the drinking-water supply, in great >volumes. (Toilets can use up to 30 percent of a household's water >supply.) This paradigm is rarely questioned, and I understand why: >flush toilets, sewers and wastewater-treatment plants do a fine >job of separating us from our potentially toxic waste, and >eliminating cholera and other waterborne diseases. Without them, >cities wouldn't work. > >But the paradigm is flawed. For a start, cleaning sewage guzzles >energy. Sewage treatment in Britain uses a quarter of the energy >generated by the country's largest coal-fired power station. > >Then there is the nutrient problem: Human excrement is rich in >nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which is why it has been a >good fertilizer for millenniums and until surprisingly >recently. (A 19th-century "sewage farm" in Pasadena, Calif., was >renowned for its tasty walnuts.) But when sewage is dumped in the >seas in great quantity, these nutrients can unbalance and >sometimes suffocate life, contributing to dead zones (405 >worldwide and counting, according to a recent study). Sewage, >according to the United Nations Environment Program, is the >biggest marine pollutant there is. Wastewater-treatment plants >work to extract the nutrients before discharging sewage into water >courses, but they can't remove them all. > >And there's also the urine problem. Urine, like any liquid, is a >headache for wastewater managers, because most sewer systems take >water from street drains along with the toilet, shower and kitchen >kind. Population growth is already taxing sewers. (London's great >network was built in the late 19th century with 25 percent extra >capacity, but a system designed for three million people must now >serve more than twice as many.) When a rainstorm suddenly sends >millions of gallons of water into an already overloaded system, >the extra must be stored or -- if storage is lacking -- >discharged, untreated, into the nearest river or harbor. Each >week, New York City sends about 800 Olympic-size swimming pools' >worth of sewage-polluted water into nearby waters because there's >nowhere else for it to go. > >This probably won't kill us, but it's not ideal. Environmental >scientists in California have calculated that sewage discharged >near 28 Southern California beaches has contributed to up to 1.5 >million excess gastrointestinal illnesses, costing as much as $51 >million in health care. We can do better. > >Urine might be one way forward. Before engineers scoff into their >breakfast, consider that since at least 135,000 urine-diversion >toilets are in use in Sweden and that a Swiss aquatic institute >did a six-year study of urine separation that found in its >favor. In Sweden, some of the collected urine -- which contains 80 >percent of the nutrients in excrement -- is given to farmers, with >little objection. "If they can use urine and it's cheap, they'll >use it," said Petter Jenssen, a professor at the Agricultural >University of Norway. > >The price of phosphorus fertilizers rose 50 percent in the past >year in some parts of the world, as phosphate reserves, the >largest of which are in Morocco and China, dwindle. (The gloomiest >predictions suggest they'll be gone in 100 years.) Although half >of sewage sludge in the United States is already turned into cheap >fertilizer known as "biosolids," urine contains hardly any of the >pathogens or heavy metals that critics of biosolids claim remain >in mixed sewage, despite treatment. > >The rest of Sweden's collected urine goes to municipal wastewater >plants, but in much smaller volume so it's easier to deal >with. Research by Jac Wilsenach, now a civil engineer in South >Africa, found that removing even half of the nutrient-rich urine >enables the bacteria in the aeration tanks to munch all the >nitrogen and phosphate matter in solid waste in a single day >rather than the usual 30. Urine diversion also makes for richer >sludge and produces more methane, which can be turned into gas or >electricity, Mr. Wilsenach said. In short, separating urine turns >a guzzler of energy into a net producer. > >Putting urine to use is not new. A friend's grandmother remembers >the man coming round for the buckets 60 years ago in Yorkshire, >which were then sold to the tanning industry. The flush toilet >ended that, and no one -- my friend's nan included -- wants >outside privies again. "Any innovation in the toilet that >increases owner responsibility is probably seen as downwardly >mobile," said Carol Steinfeld, of New Bedford, Mass., who imports >NoMix toilets into the United States. > >Then there's the sitting problem: in most urine-diversion toilets, >a man must empty his bladder sitting down. This wouldn't be a >problem in some countries -- Germany recently introduced a >toilet-seat alarm that admonishes standers to sit -- but it has >been in others. Professor Jenssen was flummoxed by one participant >at a training workshop in Cuba who said firmly, "If a man sits, he >is homosexual." > >For now, "ecological sanitation" -- or more sustainable sewage >disposal -- thrives mostly in fast-industrializing countries like >China and India, which have money to invest in alternatives but >few sewers. A subculture of composting toilets exists in the >United States, but only a few hundred urine-diversion toilets have >been imported, Ms. Steinfeld said. > >Necessity -- whether occasioned by fertilizer prices, carbon >footprints or crippling capital investments -- could bring >change. At a recent wastewater conference, I watched in >astonishment as dour engineers rushed to question a speaker who >had been talking about stabilization ponds, which clean sewage >using water, flow control, bacteria and light. Normally, such >things would be cast into the box of hippie-ish ecological >sanitation. But to managers struggling with energy quotas and >budget limitations, more sustainable, less energy-intensive >sanitation may be starting to make sense. > >As Mr. Zhang told me with a smile: "For me, whatever the toilet >is, I use it. For example, here we eat wheat. When we go to the >south of China, we eat rice. Otherwise we starve." > >It's been more than 100 years since Teddy Roosevelt wondered aloud >whether "civilized people ought to know how to dispose of the >sewage in some other way than putting it into the drinking water." >The Zhang family toilet is not the perfect answer to Roosevelt, as >it still uses some water, though 80 percent less than a regular >flush toilet uses. But at least it's the result of someone asking >the right questions. > >== > >Rose George is the author of "The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable >World of Human Waste and Why It Matters." > > > >_______________________________________________ >For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, >please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ > >RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: >[email protected] >http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins >Questions about the list? ask [email protected] >free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
