compost bin

Television's Adam Hart-Davies does just that. He has a straw urinal in his garden and invites all visitors to leave a donation. We may be "disgusted" with OUR body fluids, but we are only a hundrd years away from night soil collections in town and country. Guess the local fields might have been better for it. Now we flush it and forget. How convenient, but what a waste.

 

It's a standard thing to do - maybe that's why we tend to put our compost bins down at the bottom of the garden, out of sight? :rolleyes:

And yes - annual weeds, not seeding - YES!
- perennials - NO!!

 

I dont think I will be visiting Adam whats its house even if he is the king of England.he does not have my respect. It is the most sloven act and not respectful. I do believe in high standards. this must be the lowest of the low.
you cant change some people. makes me pretty squirmish. may be the way my parents brought me up.

 

Human waste from sewage farms is used as fertiliser on fields in some areas HB, so I'm told. Urine of course is sterile when it leaves the body, but I would have thought to acidic to be much use in the garden. Not sure what our current diet would do to the value of our other waste - hardly organic! - though having seen the result of composting loos, it looks all right. If mine host whoever he/she was had such, I would have no objection to using it.

 

We are less than 100 years from night soil collections Hornbeam. I can remember 50 years ago visiting a great aunt in Lancs who still had a dry closet that got emptied from below.
It terrified me! Seemed a very long drop.

 

Contrasting responses indeed. Amused at Fancy's outrage Ha! Ha! Ha! Does he/she not know that tap water contains a great deal of recycled pee? Most has been pee'd and recycled hundeds of times. Never mind - ignorance is bliss

 

I have a very respectable friend with a very big, secluded garden, while she is gardening and needs the loo she just goes in the garden; and why not?!

 

Unlike most people. I know exactly where what goes down our toilet goes. It goes into the Septic tank at the bottom of the garden. The liquid material flows from there into drains under the farmer's field and filters down into the ground water from whence it is extractrd and chlorinated and sent round again. The solid material is emptied and taken away.
In many parts of China etc. all waste of this nature goes into a digester which turns it into fertiliser and bio-gas which is used for cooking etc.
The time may come when we have to think seriously about using waste this way ourselves.

 

Why worry about human pee - we are all happy with horse pee in the form of manure. Its all part of nature. Large parts of the countryside are covered in dying vegetation and dead and dying creatures and their excrement, and I rate that as more hygenic than most towns. Its just that we don't like to talk about it.

Even bottled water has been shown on average to contain about 10,000 times the level of bacteria as water from the tap. And I understand that there are people that are not only prepared to drink bottled water but even pay for it as well.

 

Nice one, Palustris! I have a chemical toilet on my campervan. Now if I can connect it up to the engine, I could have free fuel forever. Perpetual motions :D

 

thanks to you all for your input! Compost bin up & running this morning! Have put loads of stuff in it already...cut up all the hardwood stems and shredded all newspapers (big loss to the paperbank!) potato peelings and kitchen roll.. now just have to sit back & wait

 

I read something about pee the other day, apparently mens pee is better cos it doesn't have as much oestrogen in it. Don't know how true this is of course.

 

Hi everyone on gc, just got home from work i hate
working sundays, still needs must when the devil drives, or something like that. On the subject of
human pee, there was a lady of about 70ish at the allotments i go to and she always took something to catch her pee in when using the onsite loo. then she would tip into her compost bin, apparantly its a good accelorater to get things started, and she had some pretty good compost! so maybe we shouldnt be to squeemish about such things. If you were on a plane that crashed in the desert and you survived would you drink your own pee? think i would give it some serious thought!

 

recycling comes to mind :D :D

 

There are people who both wash their faces and/or drink their own urine believing it has beneficial qualities.
Just remember when using it on the garden that it is 20 (I think, memory not as good as it was and cannot find the reference yet)times stronger than cow or horse, so needs well watering down.