Turning sewage into fertilizer starts with capturing the sewage.
Before chemical fertilizers, a major raw material for fertilizer was human sewage. "Humanure," as it is sometimes called today, is packed with nutrients, but it is also a potentially dangerous material. Some truly awful diseases are transmitted through human waste materials, so before household sewage can be converted into fertilizer, it must be thoroughly composted. If carried out competently and patiently, the composting process kills unwanted microorganisms and makes the sewage into a fertilizer safe for general use in the garden. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
1. Fit a bucket toilet seat to a 5-gallon plastic bucket and set it up in an area remote from your kitchen, pantry and/or secondary freezers, so as to avoid contaminating your food in the event of a spill. Place a smaller pail full of sawdust or dried leaves with a scoop near the bucket toilet, along with your toilet paper.
2. Use the bucket toilet as if it were a normal toilet. Instead of flushing, scoop sawdust or dried leaves into the bucket. Keep the lid closed to control odors.
3. Carry the bucket to a compost pile or compost container periodically. Discard the waste into the compost, and cover it by shoveling at least an equal amount of sawdust, dried leaves, dried grass cuttings, shredded paper or cardboard or something similar on top.
4. Add other compost materials, such as kitchen scraps or wood ash, to the compost pile as they become available. When the pile is 3 feet high and 3 feet wide, or the container is filled to the level recommended by the manufacturer, start a new pile.
5. Spray the compost periodically with water to ensure that it remains moist, assuming rain and humidity do not keep the compost moist for you.
6. Turn the compost pile over with a garden fork about once a week between late spring and early autumn. Some containers are built like cement mixers for this purpose.
7. Monitor the temperature of a complete compost pile by inserting a thermometer on a daily basis. Decomposition will raise the interior temperature, and combined with warm weather, this should bake and kill any harmful bacteria. If the temperature inside the pile stays above 131 degrees F for a week, the compost is free of dangerous contaminants.
8. Wait one year after the compost pile becomes free of contaminants before using the compost as fertilizer.
Tags: compost pile, bucket toilet, dried leaves, into fertilizer, sawdust dried, sawdust dried leaves