Ugh factor warning!
My old dad once asked what it was that the rich man put in his pocket that the poor man threw away. The answer had something to do with small bits of cotton cloth which were surplus to requirements for a pioneering farmer. Except for church on Sundays, of course. Certainly what he could dispose of in the paddock with great accuracy at two paces had no conceivable value.
Listening to ABC Local Radio recently Bernie Hobbs told us of the latest in human waste resource-recovery technology – human urine for fertilizer.
The Chinese did it 5000 years ago, the Japanese did it 1000 years ago, followed by much of the rest of Asia. The Swedes were collecting it from multi-story apartments in Stockholm in the late 1800s.
Dana Cordell, an environmental engineer and PhD student at the UTS Institute of Sustainable Futures and Linköping University in Sweden, is enthusiastic:
“In the past decade,” Cordell says, “several large scale demonstration projects have been undertaken in Sweden to divert urine from new housing developments and transport it to agriculture. At least two municipalities have mandated this system in new developments. “The key benefits are seen as capturing and returning valuable nutrients to arable land and the reduction of algal blooms in surface water bodies. The catalysts that made this change possible were the growing political environmental movement from the mid 1950s and the willingness of government to act. Sweden leads the western world in the research and application of this system, and other countries notably Norway, Switzerland and Germany are now researching and applying this technology.
That item was from last year. Now Dr Cordell has set up a trial with 10 toilets being installed in the Currumbin Valley, near the Gold Coast, and Associate Professor Cynthia Mitchell of UTS is spruiking the value of pee as a resource to stretch the world’s dwindling supplies of phosphorus.
Following the links at the bottom of that item we see that the Norwegians are using the warmth of poo to heat water for radiators and taps in Oslo. In Singapore they’ve harnessed the power of pee by inventing a credit card sized battery powered by a drop of urine.
James Lovelock said the other day that 6.5 billion humans breathed out four times as much carbon as the entire output of aeroplanes around the world. It’s good to see something added to the credit side of the ledger.
With Mark and Kim away and others attending important meetings, posting is a bit slow this weekend at LP. So I thought that if you were up at this time you deserved something new.
Ah the lemon tree.
Human urine has a long and sparkling history (sorry) where industry is concerned. It was used by the Romans ( and subsequently the British) to clean wool. ABC TV viewers may recall a recent history series called ‘The Worst Jobs in History’ by Tony ‘Baldrick’ Robinson. There was a hilarious episode where he did the job of a ‘fuller’ as they were called. They collected 2 weeks worth of piss from the program crew and filled up a large vat, dumped in a batch of wool, and then the unfortunate Robinson had to tread the wool in much the same manner as an Italian wine maker, in his bare feet. He was literally retching, with tears pouring down his face.
Human faeces, of course, is still spread on land in much of rural China to fertilize crops. It will compost down well, but I believe there is an issue if the diet of the producer is too high in fats, as most modern diets are. Vegetarian faeces is preferrable.
This is great news! Once it’s underway, when you buy vegetables, you’ll be able to choose from estrogen flavoured ones, ice flavoured ones, heroin flav…
The entire settlement of Sydney throve on the vegetables grown on the sand flats around Botany Bay entirely, solely, enriched with faeces. Until the late 1800s when population presuure hit it both ways, the quantity became too great for the diminishing area available. The remaining areas are STILL market gardens providing delectable vegs. a century and a half later later.
The idiot idea of extending the Sydney sewage outfalls 5-10 kms further out to sea in the late 1980s was about cosmetics, not lowering the E.coli on suburban beaches.
The East Australian Current is a vast series of eddies that actually hold coastal waters against the coast, including the heavy metal pollution from Newcastle - fishdinner anyone?
The E.coli count at Bondi is little different, slightly lower because of dilution but insignificant; it’s just the (lack of) floaters that the public (doesn’t) notice.
The engineers of the old MWSDB (now Sydney Water) in 1984 provided costing for sending the sewage over the BM to the parched and salinating inland areas but it was found to be less than the the Outfalls, the preferred (political?) option. So, to bump up the price, they included Tertiary treatment (which the Outfalls don’t use) AND the cost of pumping in DOWN the western side!! I kid you not. Despite the age old Snowy (& Shoalhaven-Sydney) technology which recoups the vast majority (approx 2/3rds) of power used to pump the water uphill when it, inevitably and apparently inexplicably, rolls down the other side.
Many NSW inland towns began sewage (some primary treated - some NONE) silviculture of E. gunni (primarily but many other E. species as well)and recorded rates of growth up to ten times faster than wild, primarily due to the extra water as few Oz flora enjoy too much N or P.
Without going into the disgraceful history since Kennett got his hands on power, the Melbourne Werribee area was a world centre of excellence using primary treated flood irrigation, prize herds of fat cattle and wild fowl haunts of stunning diversity. All gone now, due to overuse, budget cuts and neglect.
Strange thing how humanity domesticated all those cattle centuries ago,because they do seem to have been smarter then,and have had that bred out of them according to Suzuki.. once on the ABC. Me,I think they fell in love with human piss,male human piss, and have been losing their intelligence ever since. I have noticed a few tufts of grass get completely uprooted if I piss in the same spot.So there you go see, it remains to be proven that all those cave paintings of humans and cattle in France and parts are just the ancient urinals,with another human braggard line in an old art form. The nose[ of cattle] have it.I also picked up a book from the local tip on garlic,and the complaint that ensues from growing that stuff in the remainders of human intake is the garlic is missing something,and doesnt last as long. That wasnt mentioned in the book, why the book was pissed off I dont know..
As I understand it, the collection of urine is best done using a toilet with two outlets, (outlet Number One and Number Two?) reviewed in NewScientist a while back and with details here.
Males have to sit down to get number ones going into the number one outlet.
Ask any woman what they do in public toilets.
Obviously to industrialise the process you need to scale it up and address the problem of collection and transport as they are in Europe.
One problem that occurs to me is that the new toilet design would almost certainly require more water to flush than the modern 3/6 systems, a precious resource in these parts.
Brian: My understanding is that less water is used within the house, but even if not, but the real saving is in the downstream processing: Ones and Twos are much easier to “de-tox” when separated rather than mixed, and it is also much easier to reclaim useful products from them. It’s a bummer that you can’t get to full text of major articles in NewScientist unless a subscriber, and I’d give more specific details if I hadn’t recycled my copy by leaving it in a local safe, recycling not just the paper, but the words. (Now, my local caffeine supplier keeps hassling me “Have you finished with this week’s New Scientist and Economist yet?”)
On a related issue, a “second incoming” pipe to houses for grey water needing less treatment would also be a good idea.
I expect a changeover is easier with new housing estates and perhaps a progam of refurbishing public buildings, multi-unit dwellings and such.
Back in the days when I was in the public service I had the New Scientist routed to my in-basket because I could. I swear it’s the next thing I’ll subscribe to if I decide to expand my list.