Installing "half-flush" toilets is nice option for reducing water used merely to flush yellow (I believe invented, or at least first popularized in, Australia). I think they have become more available in the US lately; check out the new toilet at Greenstar . . .
Also Real Goods/Gaiam sells a retrofit "half-flush handle." Has anyone tried one? I keep meaning to. It would help at the well or water meter end, as well as at the septic/wastewater end. Perhaps a building code requiring half-flush toilets? I believe it has been code in drought-stricken Australia for some time; it is certainly common practice there. Margaret On Mar 1, 2009, at 7:10 PM, Joel and Sarah Gagnon wrote: > Indeed, it does. This is an apt form of source separation. > > Joel > > At 12:56 PM 3/1/09 -0500, you wrote: >> This article makes a nice sidebar to Tom Shelley's TCLocal piece on >> waste treatment last month. >> >> Jon >> >> ================================================================== >> >> The New York Times >> Op-Ed Contributor >> Yellow Is the New Green >> By ROSE GEORGE >> >> Woolley, England >> >> IN the far reaches of Shaanxi Province in northern China, in an >> apple-producing village named Ganquanfang, I recently visited a >> house belonging to two cheery primary-school teachers, Zhang Min >> Shu and his wife, Wu Zhaoxian. Their house wasn't exceptional -- a >> spacious yard, several rooms -- except for the bathroom. There, up >> a few steps on a tiled platform, sat a toilet unlike any I'd >> seen. Its pan was divided in two: solid waste went in the back, >> and the front compartment collected urine. The liquids and solids >> can, after a decent period of storage and composting, be applied >> to the fields as pathogen-free, expense-free fertilizer. >> >> From being unsure of wanting a toilet near the house in the first >> place -- which is why the bathroom is at the far end of their >> courtyard -- the couple had become so delighted with it that they >> regretted not putting it next to the kitchen after all. >> >> What does this have to do with you? Mr. Zhang and Ms. Wu's weird >> toilet -- known as a "urine diversion," or NoMix (after a Swedish >> brand), toilet -- may have things to teach us all. >> >> In the industrialized world, most of us (except those who have >> septic tanks) rely on wastewater-treatment plants to remove our >> excrement from the drinking-water supply, in great >> volumes. (Toilets can use up to 30 percent of a household's water >> supply.) This paradigm is rarely questioned, and I understand why: >> flush toilets, sewers and wastewater-treatment plants do a fine >> job of separating us from our potentially toxic waste, and >> eliminating cholera and other waterborne diseases. Without them, >> cities wouldn't work. >> >> But the paradigm is flawed. For a start, cleaning sewage guzzles >> energy. Sewage treatment in Britain uses a quarter of the energy >> generated by the country's largest coal-fired power station. >> >> Then there is the nutrient problem: Human excrement is rich in >> nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which is why it has been a >> good fertilizer for millenniums and until surprisingly >> recently. (A 19th-century "sewage farm" in Pasadena, Calif., was >> renowned for its tasty walnuts.) But when sewage is dumped in the >> seas in great quantity, these nutrients can unbalance and >> sometimes suffocate life, contributing to dead zones (405 >> worldwide and counting, according to a recent study). Sewage, >> according to the United Nations Environment Program, is the >> biggest marine pollutant there is. Wastewater-treatment plants >> work to extract the nutrients before discharging sewage into water >> courses, but they can't remove them all. >> >> And there's also the urine problem. Urine, like any liquid, is a >> headache for wastewater managers, because most sewer systems take >> water from street drains along with the toilet, shower and kitchen >> kind. Population growth is already taxing sewers. (London's great >> network was built in the late 19th century with 25 percent extra >> capacity, but a system designed for three million people must now >> serve more than twice as many.) When a rainstorm suddenly sends >> millions of gallons of water into an already overloaded system, >> the extra must be stored or -- if storage is lacking -- >> discharged, untreated, into the nearest river or harbor. Each >> week, New York City sends about 800 Olympic-size swimming pools' >> worth of sewage-polluted water into nearby waters because there's >> nowhere else for it to go. >> >> This probably won't kill us, but it's not ideal. Environmental >> scientists in California have calculated that sewage discharged >> near 28 Southern California beaches has contributed to up to 1.5 >> million excess gastrointestinal illnesses, costing as much as $51 >> million in health care. We can do better. >> >> Urine might be one way forward. Before engineers scoff into their >> breakfast, consider that since at least 135,000 urine-diversion >> toilets are in use in Sweden and that a Swiss aquatic institute >> did a six-year study of urine separation that found in its >> favor. In Sweden, some of the collected urine -- which contains 80 >> percent of the nutrients in excrement -- is given to farmers, with >> little objection. "If they can use urine and it's cheap, they'll >> use it," said Petter Jenssen, a professor at the Agricultural >> University of Norway. >> >> The price of phosphorus fertilizers rose 50 percent in the past >> year in some parts of the world, as phosphate reserves, the >> largest of which are in Morocco and China, dwindle. (The gloomiest >> predictions suggest they'll be gone in 100 years.) Although half >> of sewage sludge in the United States is already turned into cheap >> fertilizer known as "biosolids," urine contains hardly any of the >> pathogens or heavy metals that critics of biosolids claim remain >> in mixed sewage, despite treatment. >> >> The rest of Sweden's collected urine goes to municipal wastewater >> plants, but in much smaller volume so it's easier to deal >> with. Research by Jac Wilsenach, now a civil engineer in South >> Africa, found that removing even half of the nutrient-rich urine >> enables the bacteria in the aeration tanks to munch all the >> nitrogen and phosphate matter in solid waste in a single day >> rather than the usual 30. Urine diversion also makes for richer >> sludge and produces more methane, which can be turned into gas or >> electricity, Mr. Wilsenach said. In short, separating urine turns >> a guzzler of energy into a net producer. >> >> Putting urine to use is not new. A friend's grandmother remembers >> the man coming round for the buckets 60 years ago in Yorkshire, >> which were then sold to the tanning industry. The flush toilet >> ended that, and no one -- my friend's nan included -- wants >> outside privies again. "Any innovation in the toilet that >> increases owner responsibility is probably seen as downwardly >> mobile," said Carol Steinfeld, of New Bedford, Mass., who imports >> NoMix toilets into the United States. >> >> Then there's the sitting problem: in most urine-diversion toilets, >> a man must empty his bladder sitting down. This wouldn't be a >> problem in some countries -- Germany recently introduced a >> toilet-seat alarm that admonishes standers to sit -- but it has >> been in others. Professor Jenssen was flummoxed by one participant >> at a training workshop in Cuba who said firmly, "If a man sits, he >> is homosexual." >> >> For now, "ecological sanitation" -- or more sustainable sewage >> disposal -- thrives mostly in fast-industrializing countries like >> China and India, which have money to invest in alternatives but >> few sewers. A subculture of composting toilets exists in the >> United States, but only a few hundred urine-diversion toilets have >> been imported, Ms. Steinfeld said. >> >> Necessity -- whether occasioned by fertilizer prices, carbon >> footprints or crippling capital investments -- could bring >> change. At a recent wastewater conference, I watched in >> astonishment as dour engineers rushed to question a speaker who >> had been talking about stabilization ponds, which clean sewage >> using water, flow control, bacteria and light. Normally, such >> things would be cast into the box of hippie-ish ecological >> sanitation. But to managers struggling with energy quotas and >> budget limitations, more sustainable, less energy-intensive >> sanitation may be starting to make sense. >> >> As Mr. Zhang told me with a smile: "For me, whatever the toilet >> is, I use it. For example, here we eat wheat. When we go to the >> south of China, we eat rice. Otherwise we starve." >> >> It's been more than 100 years since Teddy Roosevelt wondered aloud >> whether "civilized people ought to know how to dispose of the >> sewage in some other way than putting it into the drinking water." >> The Zhang family toilet is not the perfect answer to Roosevelt, as >> it still uses some water, though 80 percent less than a regular >> flush toilet uses. But at least it's the result of someone asking >> the right questions. >> >> == >> >> Rose George is the author of "The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable >> World of Human Waste and Why It Matters." >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County >> area, >> please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ >> >> RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: >> [email protected] >> http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins >> Questions about the list? ask [email protected] >> free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org > _______________________________________________ > For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County > area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ > > RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: > [email protected] > http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins > Questions about the list? ask [email protected] > free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
