Mark Nelson does not want you to flush your poo. Why, he’d ask you, are you usingperfectly good drinking waterto carry perfectly good fertilizer out to pollute (formerly) perfectly good waterways?
Seriously, not only does even mylow-flow toiletwaste a gallon or two of water with every poop, but septic systems like mine are also apparently notorious groundwater polluters, claims Nelson, and this all while I’m buying fertilizer from the store and spending several mornings a week outside using, again, perfectly good drinking water to water my plants.
InThe Wastewater Gardener (这是宣传人员给我的),前生物圈2号居民马克·纳尔逊(Mark Nelson)指出,我们的粪便禁忌阻碍了我们的经济和环境改善,也抑制了我们帮助世界各地需要帮助的人的能力。你不能只是把有价值的粪便从污水处理厂抢救出来,然后作为肥料分发出去,因为那时它们已经被药物、金属和其他人们认为可以冲入下水道的东西污染了。在个人和小社区层面的废水园艺,可以开启这些改善,让我们节约用水,种植更多的作物,即使在不良的地方,并避免自然资源的污染。
For those who want to try wastewater gardening at home, Nelson offers specific instructions for projects like composting with humanure, which is apparently especially excellent for growing trees. The more enterprising among us can research constructed wetlands as a source of water treatment and hydroponic gardening, or join the international Wastewater Gardens movement.
If you’re not yet ready for any of those suggestions, however, Nelson still has a starting point for you: simply conserve water. Use low-water appliances, and consider matching the quality of water that you do use to its purpose. Clean, fresh, pure water is for drinking, cooking, and bathing, but water captured from your shower, or the latest rainfall, is excellent for watering plants.
And just keep that idea of the composting toilet in the back of your mind for when you *are* ready to try it.
[I received a free copy of TheWastewater Gardener因为如果一件事没有让我认真考虑在我的房子后面建一个便便花园,我是不会去评论的。]
Tinasays
When we had a dog I briefly looked into trying to figure out how to use his waste to our advantage. Might have to check out this book to see how we can do the same for our waste!
Julie Finnsays
Maybe once you’re out of your apartment–your landlord might give slight side-eye to a composting toilet in the living room. I’m now kind of obsessed with the idea of using graywater from the washing machine to irrigate our gardens, too…
Tinasays
I was searching for a toilet setup that we could take camping with us (https://greenupgrader.com/8483/closing-the-poop-loop-diy-humanure-toilet/) and while I was explaining it to my hubby, I was informed that we would NOT be composting our crap. Thankfully I have a few years to change his mind before we are ready for that anyway.