Humanure?  Yeah, I know dealing with human excrement can be really gross.  Even after potty training 3 kids, and living with three cats (one of whom will poop in my living room when she’s pissed off at me) I still haven’t gotten over the horror of it all.  But I came across some interesting ways of dealing with it, one that even turns the business of pooping into a business!

Composting toilets have been around for a long time, but never really caught in the developed world because, I guess, it just sounds gross.  When I was growing up we never composted our grass cutting or our leaves (who ever thought it would be a good idea to spend the afternoon raking leaves, then put them in PLASTIC bags that needed to be brought up to the curb to be added to a landfill?) let alone our own bodily waste.  But having gone to a high school built on a landfill, where the gymnasium sank an inch, I’m thinking it’s time to stop adding to mess and start finding a way to deal with it.

I came across a non-profit organization called SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihood) that works in Haiti, turns waste into a resource.  Ecological Sanitation collects human waste, composts it and reuses it in agriculture and reforestation.  In Haiti, agricultural productivity is stymied by poor soil fertility, soil erosion and lack of fertilizers.  SOIL addresses the needs of waste management and public health and in turn helps farmers improve crop production and feed the nation.

The way dry toilets work is simple.  The urine is separated from the solid waste, usually through a diverting channel, and can be either absorbed into the soil or collected for use in agricultural fields.  The solid waste is collected in a separate chamber and can be combined with several drying agents: leaves, ash, sawdust, etc., which helps keeps out the smell.  Once the poop is dried out and becomes compost, all the disease carrying pathogens are gone, and the product can be uses as another fertilizer in the field.

Where the business of pooping becomes a business is when the people who aren’t afraid of poop charge a collection fee to their poopaphobic  neighbors for collection of their waste, which is then composted with other materials and sold to farmers as fertilizer.

For more information, check out the SOIL website at http://www.oursoil.org/ and http://www.ecosanres.org/index.htm for more information about sustainable sanitation in the developing world.