Quote:
Originally Posted by wildshore
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That's been my experience as well. Use a lot of cover material. Absolutely odorless. Even when left open and with no vent.
It's mixing the liquids with the solids that causes the bad smells.
If you don't separate them, the only benefit of the composting head is that it doesn't use
water. Which on land is reason enough.
My simple bucket and jug in the garage is cleaner, way less smelly, whether in use or just sitting there than the regular toilet in the house and it's ecologically sound.
I agree with Joseph Jenkins when he says that the
flushing toilet is the most wasteful invention that man has ever come up with. We simply can't go on indefinitely being as wasteful and oblivious as we have become.
FUN FACTS
about water
• If all the world’s
drinking water were put in one cubical tank, the tank
would measure only 95 miles on each side.
• People currently lacking access to clean
drinking water: 1.2 billion.
• % of world’s households that must fetch water outside their homes: 67
• % increase in the world’s population by mid 21st century: 100
• % increase in the world’s drinking water supplies by mid 21st century: 0
• Amount of water Americans use every day: 340 billion gallons.
• Number of gallons of water needed to produce a car: 100,000
• Number of cars produced every year: 50 million.
• Amount of water annually required by a nuclear reactor: 1.9 cubic miles.
• Amount of water used by nuclear reactors every year: the equivalent of
one and a third Lake Eries.
Sources: Der Spiegel, May 25, 1992; and Annals of Earth, Vol. 8, Number 2, 1990; Ocean Arks International,
One Locust Street, Falmouth, MA 02540.
WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE
AND IT’S ALL GOING DOWNHILL
• In the mid 1980s, the 2,207 publicly owned coastal sewage treatment works were discharging
3.619 trillion gallons per year of treated wastewater into the coastal
environment.
14
• In 2004, 850 billion gallons of untreated wastewater and storm water were released as
combined sewer overflows and between 3 billion and 10 billion gallons of untreated
wastewater from sanitary sewer overflows are released each year in the U.S.43
• In 1997, pollution caused at least 4,153 beach closings and advisories, 69% of which
were caused by elevated bacterial pollution in the water.15
• In 2001, of the 2,445 beaches surveyed by the EPA, 672 were affected by advisories
or closings, most often due to elevated bacteria levels.
• In 2003, there were more than 18,000 days of pollution-related closings and advisories
at U.S. beaches according to NRDC's annual report on beachwater quality. 88% of
the closings and advisories stemmed from the presence of bacteria associated with
fecal contamination. By 2007, the number of closing and advisory days at ocean, bay,
and
Great Lakes beaches had topped 20,000 for the third consecutive year. The number
due to sewage spills and overflows more than tripled from 2006 to 2007.
• According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the primary cause reported
for beach closings is the overflow of combined storm-water and sewage systems with
insufficient capacity to retain heavy rains for processing through sewage treatment
plants.
• In 2002,
New York State sued Yonkers over sewage discharges, alleging that thousands
of gallons per day of untreated sewage were discharged into the Bronx River
from at least four pipes owned and operated by the city. Laboratory results showed
that the pollution contained the bacteria fecal coliform, an indicator of raw sewage, in
concentrations as high as 250 times more than allowed by
New York State water quality
standards.
• In 2002, a federal judge found Los Angeles liable for 297 sewage spills. From 1993 to
January, 2002, the city reported 3,000 sewage spills. Los Angeles has about 6,500
miles of sewers. The spills end up in waterways, are carried into the ocean and pollute
beaches.16
• United Nations
Environment Program (UNEP) studies show that over 800 million people
in coastal South
Asia have no basic sanitation services, putting them at high risk
from sewage-related diseases and death.
• In 2000, 55% of U.S. lakes, rivers and estuaries were not clean enough for
fishing or
swimming according to EPA testimony before Congress in 2002. In 1995, 40% were
too polluted to allow
fishing, swimming or other aquatic uses at any time of the year,
according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
• In January of 2005 it was reported that twenty-two percent of U.S. coastal waters were
unsuitable for fishing, based on EPA guidelines for moderate
consumption of recreationally-
caught
fish.
Joseph Jenkins