Going Green Nature Composting toilet

[Ribbit]

Strewth, when you think of the scale of the 'pollutants' (poo, methane, etc)produced by sea life, we are likely getting things very seriously out of proportion.

The microbe Methanosarcina was likely responsible for the largest mass extinction in Earth's history for example.

Dolphins don't poo? Whales don't poo? Fish don't poo? Plankton don't poo? Yeah right.

I don't think they use cat litter, earth closets, or marine heads either.

eta: One of the many interesting articles available on Methanosarcina:

http://phys.org/news/2014-03-methane...gest-mass.html

If you like getting into a hysterical panic about non-issues, whatever you do, don't go looking into termites, or even methane farting trees for that matter either (Max Planck Institute discovered that to their surprise, trees fart - and no this is not routing methane from the ground through the tree, the trees actually produce it, because the test environment didn't have any methane in it at all to start with, for them to pump into the sealed atmosphere).

PS. I do think we really need to start redefining what 'pollution' actually is. Too much stuff we have been panicking about, is putting us at a serious disadvantage due to its absence or over reduction. For example, farmers used to get free doses of precious sulphur for their land from the air (which did wonders for the soil and plants), which because it is now removed (low sulphur fuels, etc), they have to buy in and spread. Then again, what about wilderness areas which don't have farmers buying in sulphur for their benefit?

Same with copper and lead. Which types? Metallic lead is no problem (it is inert and stable in the environment, and even safe to use out of shotguns over wetlands - yes the studies pretending otherwise were rigged), same with copper, yet everything gets branded as if it is all the same. Heck we even NEED copper (copper deficiency is very nasty) and we even NEED trace amounts of many so called 'poisons', like Arsenic, for example.

People are even treating salt as if it is a pollutant, yet it is essential for the body to function, and the body loses it as quite a rate (a massively increased rate in high temperatures - a Dr colleague of my uncle's collapsed on the rugby pitch with salt deficiency within an hour of arriving back in Nigeria, because he forgot to take his salt tablet, but luckily he was surrounded by doctors on the pitch who sorted him out). Also, who would have believed that an idiot on a low salt diet would die as a result, in the North of England last year?

Heck drink too much water and it can kill you.

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by jkindredpdx

This is an interesting article (click link and scroll up): Urine Collection Beats Composting Toilets for Nutrient Recycling - BuildingGreen

I just cleaned the toilet the other day... I'm not say that what I do is right, it's just what I do.

I empty the poo bucket into a 3 gal black bucket with a screen vented Gamma Seal screw lid that I store in a cockpit locker. I believe the screen is important to avoid a fly infestation. I stir in 3 or 4 toilet buckets into the secondary compost bucket before emptying the secondary container's dirt onto a flowerbed. So, the freshest poo that goes on the ground is a few months old.

I store the urine in an airtight 2 gal liquid laundry detergent container jug for a few days before hauling it to shore. I pour the approx 3:1 diluted urine in an out of the way place under bushes or trees.

You are walking the walk, Cap.

Why dilute the urine?

[bletso]

Originally Posted by Ribbit

The microbe Methanosarcina was likely responsible for the largest mass extinction in Earth's history for example.

So, perhaps the species homo sapiens will likely be responsible for the next mass extinction? We keep breeding as we are and we may just starve ourselves out of existence!

There are plenty of examples of what happens when too many people inhabit and pollute the local environment leading to huge problems in the health and well being of its inhabitants. Taken on a large scale dilution is the solution seems to work, but concentrate the pollution and it becomes an issue.

[Ribbit]

Originally Posted by bletso

So, perhaps the species homo sapiens will likely be responsible for the next mass extinction? We keep breeding as we are and we may just starve ourselves out of existence!

There are plenty of examples of what happens when too many people inhabit and pollute the local environment leading to huge problems in the health and well being of its inhabitants. Taken on a large scale dilution is the solution seems to work, but concentrate the pollution and it becomes an issue.

The human footprint has been measured. It is under 2.5% of the Earth's surface, and the vast majority of that, is agricultural land.

Even the UN admit human population is likely to start falling substantially from around 2050.

With desalination and drip agriculture in the Sahara, we could feed, clothe, and house, probably ten times the present World population, without impacting anywhere else on Earth (6 harvests a year and phenomenally fast tree growth - that's what you would get in the Sahara, and the resulting biomass feedstock alone, would be able to provide all the ultra clean diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, and gas fuels, that are needed, if fed through cheap Plasma Gasification Plant and associated syngas production equipment).

Over 50% of humans now live in Cities, and that can give a false impression that the whole World is like that. It isn't. Light too gives a very false impression (satellite photo's over areas at night, you see huge amounts of light pollution, but it gives the wrong impression of what is on the ground). Roads are small, and buildings tend to be at the side of roads.

Even somewhere as populated as Europe, if you travel by motorbike across it like I have, you might be surprised at just how much wilderness there is. Leave the Med coast of Spain and head inland a few miles, and it is wonderfully rural. Drop down into Catalunya from Andorra for example, and it is wonderful.

It is the beaten tracks that are busy.

In the 1960's, people were saying that every beach in the World would be metres deep in plastic, within 10 years. Natural silt flowing from estuaries, can give people a false impression of pollution, and actual dirty water is very localised.

If the scaremongers that frighten people to extort money from them were right, then the Red Sea would be a barren wasteland, with no corals, and no marine life.

Yet in conditions which we are assured are impossible for anything to thrive, life thrives, including corals.

To me, people that are so quick to scapegoat human beings (people who are quick to use evolution as a tool to beat down other people, yet really they are anti-evolution, because they want to interfere in everything, and refuse to allow evolution to function, and refuse to admit that this World has evolved us to be exactly how we are, and if we disappear, then our replacements will be fulfilling the same function, and are hypocrites, because they lecture everybody else, then do the exact opposite themselves), even for imaginary problems, are serving a very unsavoury agenda.

We have real solutions for very real problems RIGHT NOW, but will they get behind those solutions?

No. They oppose them at every step of the way, which is resulting in the unnecessary deaths of the elderly, the sick, and the weak, in massive numbers, every single year.

Frankly, I have had enough of these people, consumed in their own negativity, that are incapable of doing joined up thinking, who insist on doing the same things over and over and over again, while expecting a different result each time.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Ribbit

The human footprint has been measured. It is under 2.5% of the Earth's surface, and the vast majority of that, is agricultural land.

Even the UN admit human population is likely to start falling substantially from around 2050.

With desalination and drip agriculture in the Sahara, we could feed, clothe, and house, probably ten times the present World population, without impacting anywhere else on Earth (6 harvests a year and phenomenally fast tree growth - that's what you would get in the Sahara, and the resulting biomass feedstock alone, would be able to provide all the ultra clean diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, and gas fuels, that are needed, if fed through cheap Plasma Gasification Plant and associated syngas production equipment).

Over 50% of humans now live in Cities, and that can give a false impression that the whole World is like that. It isn't. Light too gives a very false impression (satellite photo's over areas at night, you see huge amounts of light pollution, but it gives the wrong impression of what is on the ground). Roads are small, and buildings tend to be at the side of roads.

Even somewhere as populated as Europe, if you travel by motorbike across it like I have, you might be surprised at just how much wilderness there is. Leave the Med coast of Spain and head inland a few miles, and it is wonderfully rural. Drop down into Catalunya from Andorra for example, and it is wonderful.

It is the beaten tracks that are busy.

In the 1960's, people were saying that every beach in the World would be metres deep in plastic, within 10 years. Natural silt flowing from estuaries, can give people a false impression of pollution, and actual dirty water is very localised.

If the scaremongers that frighten people to extort money from them were right, then the Red Sea would be a barren wasteland, with no corals, and no marine life.

Yet in conditions which we are assured are impossible for anything to thrive, life thrives, including corals.

To me, people that are so quick to scapegoat human beings (people who are quick to use evolution as a tool to beat down other people, yet really they are anti-evolution, because they want to interfere in everything, and refuse to allow evolution to function, and refuse to admit that this World has evolved us to be exactly how we are, and if we disappear, then our replacements will be fulfilling the same function, and are hypocrites, because they lecture everybody else, then do the exact opposite themselves), even for imaginary problems, are serving a very unsavoury agenda.

We have real solutions for very real problems RIGHT NOW, but will they get behind those solutions?

No. They oppose them at every step of the way, which is resulting in the unnecessary deaths of the elderly, the sick, and the weak, in massive numbers, every single year.

Frankly, I have had enough of these people, consumed in their own negativity, that are incapable of doing joined up thinking, who insist on doing the same things over and over and over again, while expecting a different result each time.

All of which is great information with little to no connection to ones desire to use an air head on their vessel . Regardless of what color they paint it.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by newhaul

All of which is great information with little to no connection to ones desire to use an air head on their vessel . Regardless of what color they paint it.

+1

[Bulawayo]

Originally Posted by newhaul

All of which is great information with little to no connection to ones desire to use an air head on their vessel . Regardless of what color they paint it.

Gone off track......but also some wrong info. Go to the Red Sea and dive it, north to south (we have, several times) and you shall see the increasing amount of dead coral. Being realistic though, this is not just down to some cruisers discharging overboard.
Try fishing........whereas the first time we transitted we would catch regularly. On our last trip earlier this year we didn't catch once. We were also aware of the increase in the garbage floating around. On an obvious note, there were also less sharks seen when diving & less shell fish.
Lets get back on track? We prefer the 'composting' loo and like the simplicity and also knowing that we are not dumping raw poo/urine in our back yard, regardless of whether it is believed, or not, to contaminate. It reminds me of the 'cigarettes are not harmful' stories that circulated in the 50's & 60's, especially when moderation is applied, or even the airlines and DVT.
P.S. Some of your musings were spot on.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Ribbit

The human footprint has been measured. It is under 2.5% of the Earth's surface, and the vast majority of that, is agricultural land.

Even the UN admit human population is likely to start falling substantially from around 2050.

With desalination and drip agriculture in the Sahara, we could feed, clothe, and house, probably ten times the present World population, without impacting anywhere else on Earth (6 harvests a year and phenomenally fast tree growth - that's what you would get in the Sahara, and the resulting biomass feedstock alone, would be able to provide all the ultra clean diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, and gas fuels, that are needed, if fed through cheap Plasma Gasification Plant and associated syngas production equipment).

Over 50% of humans now live in Cities, and that can give a false impression that the whole World is like that. It isn't. Light too gives a very false impression (satellite photo's over areas at night, you see huge amounts of light pollution, but it gives the wrong impression of what is on the ground). Roads are small, and buildings tend to be at the side of roads.

Even somewhere as populated as Europe, if you travel by motorbike across it like I have, you might be surprised at just how much wilderness there is. Leave the Med coast of Spain and head inland a few miles, and it is wonderfully rural. Drop down into Catalunya from Andorra for example, and it is wonderful.

It is the beaten tracks that are busy.

In the 1960's, people were saying that every beach in the World would be metres deep in plastic, within 10 years. Natural silt flowing from estuaries, can give people a false impression of pollution, and actual dirty water is very localised.

If the scaremongers that frighten people to extort money from them were right, then the Red Sea would be a barren wasteland, with no corals, and no marine life.

Yet in conditions which we are assured are impossible for anything to thrive, life thrives, including corals.

To me, people that are so quick to scapegoat human beings (people who are quick to use evolution as a tool to beat down other people, yet really they are anti-evolution, because they want to interfere in everything, and refuse to allow evolution to function, and refuse to admit that this World has evolved us to be exactly how we are, and if we disappear, then our replacements will be fulfilling the same function, and are hypocrites, because they lecture everybody else, then do the exact opposite themselves), even for imaginary problems, are serving a very unsavoury agenda.

We have real solutions for very real problems RIGHT NOW, but will they get behind those solutions?

No. They oppose them at every step of the way, which is resulting in the unnecessary deaths of the elderly, the sick, and the weak, in massive numbers, every single year.

Frankly, I have had enough of these people, consumed in their own negativity, that are incapable of doing joined up thinking, who insist on doing the same things over and over and over again, while expecting a different result each time.

Didn't want to cause further thread drift however i do agree that your statements seem to be contradictory to real world data. citations please

[weavis]

Originally Posted by Bulawayo

Try fishing........whereas the first time we transitted we would catch regularly. On our last trip earlier this year we didn't catch once.

Another fisherman blaming his equipment.

[CHAZ]

Originally Posted by first wind

as dirt. i believe that's his point. all the dirt that covers this planet started life as either someone or something's crap or someone or something's corpse.

And then it gets interesting

Global nutrient transport in a world of giants

One day, composters will be mandatory to feed Mother Earth again

No more sh...ing and p...ing in our freshwater and then using energy, chemicals et all to flush it out to sea again

Fair bodily functions to all
Martin

[jkindredpdx]

Originally Posted by Blue Crab

You are walking the walk, Cap.

Why dilute the urine?

I just don't know much about plants and figured I don't want to burn the plants


JimK

[CHAZ]

Originally Posted by jkindredpdx

I just don't know much about plants and figured I don't want to burn the plants


JimK

Kudos to you, I like your approach
and your blog.

Fair winds
Martin

[StuM]

Originally Posted by CHAZ

And then it gets interesting

Global nutrient transport in a world of giants

One day, composters will be mandatory to feed Mother Earth again

No more sh...ing and p...ing in our freshwater and then using energy, chemicals et all to flush it out to sea again

Wow!
1. Less nutrients moved by seabirds and anadromous fish from the sea to the land!
2. Less nutrients moved around the land by megafauna than 10,000 years ago

All based on models with almost no mention of:

1. The vastly increased amount of biomass/nutrients moved from ocean to land by humans through fishing.

2. The vast quantities of biomass/nutrients moved through agriculture, large scale animal farming and the global food transportation network.

Yeah, right!

[CHAZ]

Fair bodily functions to all
Martin

Originally Posted by StuM

Wow!
1. Less nutrients moved by seabirds and anadromous fish from the sea to the land!
2. Less nutrients moved around the land by megafauna than 10,000 years ago

All based on models with almost no mention of:

1. The vastly increased amount of biomass/nutrients moved from ocean to land by humans through fishing.
Seems we need more fishermen, so we will have more biomass/nutrients to dump in landfills or to flush down the sewer system.

2. The vast quantities of biomass/nutrients moved through agriculture, large scale animal farming and the global food transportation network.
This sounds more like monoculture to me but "some" people seem to like this and they don't have to run thru the prairies and forests to dump these nutrients back on the grounds.

Yeah, right!

Good Morning StuM,
thanks for playing, it teaches me to type and to learn them little tricks on this outstanding CF forum.

Wow! I even found a small (important?) missing part of my quote and put it back above yours if you don't mind

Fair play and fair winds to all

Martin

[Blue Crab]

Chaz, a caution: One of these figures represents Stu, the other, you. (Jes sayin')