“Flush and forget” or “drop and store” are some of the most common strategies for human waste “treatment” around the globe. These approaches can be seen in massive sewer systems that exhaust effluence away from communities, septic systems that hide and diffuse material locally, and common pit latrines that simply hide and cover the waste. These methods do not treat the waste so much as bury it or move it to another place in the world where it may become someone else’s problem. In doing so, households and communities are missing an incredible opportunity to turn waste into nutrients that can improve public health and reduce hunger.

EcoSanitation is a closed-loop concept of sewage treatment that employs the planet’s natural hydrological cycle to close the gap between sanitation and agriculture. The hydrological cycle, a term we use to illustrate the paths of water between atmosphere, earth and oceans, includes the essential process of evapotranspiration. Evapotranspiration is the sum of water transfer to the atmosphere due to evaporation (from soil) and transpiration (from the metabolic processes of plants). This naturally occurring phenomenon, which separates water vapor from organic material, can be harnessed to safely process the nutrients of human waste while supporting the growth of edible fruits and vegetables.

Read more: EcoSanitation: Trading “Flush and Forget” for “Cycle and Sow” @ Engineering for Change.

“Shit can move on trucks.”

On the outskirts of Bangalore, India’s tech capital, an office doubles as a museum of the toilet. An exhibit in one room traces the history of sanitation, from ancient Mesopotamian sewers to Europe’s first flush toilets and the modern sewer systems built to process the waste they spurt out. Then, another exhibit turns to the global sanitation crisis — including a sculpture of naked babies representing the half-million children under 5 who die from diarrhea annually — and technologies to tackle it.

CDD Society, the nonprofit housing the display, wants Indians to think outside the sewer. It has built India’s first citywide fecal sludge treatment plant, which turns human excreta into compost with no electricity and no connection to an underground sewer…. The organization and India are only part of a growing trend across multiple developing countries, where governments, entrepreneurs and nonprofits are eschewing Western-style sewer systems that use vast piped networks to deliver waste to centralized treatment plants.

Instead, they are opting for decentralized approaches to treating poo and pee. Their models rely on trucks to transport waste to systems like septic tanks and latrine pits that use less water than sewers and recycle human waste. They are pitching themselves as the answer to the global sanitation crisis: 2.5 billion people, a third of the world’s population, lack access to a toilet, while an estimated 80 percent of human waste worldwide goes untreated.

Read more: Why Cities are Starting to Shun Sewers. Previously: Recycling animal and human dung is the key to sustainable farming.

After the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti nearly 1.5 million people in the capitol were living in camps without access to sanitation. In response to the crisis, international agencies installed thousands of toilets within weeks. However, the absence of waste treatment facilities in the country further complicated the sanitation response.

The first treatment facility constructed post – earthquake was a thermophilic composting site designed to treat the wastes from 20,000 earthquake victims living in camps. Despite multiple hurricanes, a cholera epidemic, and political unrest, the SOIL composting facilities have treated over 500,000 gallons of human waste in the past three years, converting it to pathogen free compost, over 10,000 gallons of which has been sold for use in agriculture and reforestation projects.

The experience of thermophilic composting in Haiti is unique in scale and duration and can have global implications for waste treatment in both emergency and development contexts. The simple infrastructure requirements relative to more advanced technological approaches allow for rapid implementation in the wake of a disaster. The infrastructure itself is not dependent on an energy source and materials for construction can be sourced locally. Additionally, the straightforward operation and maintenance facilitate locally managed repairs and on-going service provision.

Thermophilic composting of human wastes in uncertain urban environments: a case study from Haiti (PDF), SOIL Haiti.

Previously:

• Recycling animal and human dung is the key to sustainable farming
• Sewage, Toilets, and Nutrient Cycles for Dummies.

Mathew Lippincott writes: “I read with great relish your new article on human manure. I’ve been working on a project along the same wavelength. There is a small group of people (including ourselves) here in Portland, Oregon who have really gone for humanure, and we’re organizing. Through ReCode Oregon we’re proposing code changes to allow for user-built composting toilet systems. My partner Molly and I just completed six posters on the the topic of sewage, toilets, and nutrient cycles. I hope you like them. We’re working to design composting portable toilets right now, and the lack of knowledge amongst most people on soil processes and nutrient cycles was making us crazy.”

Click to enlarge.

The posters are for sale. Six posters for $5 or 12 posters for $7. Or get them for free if you promise to put them up in restrooms around Portland. More on the project at Cloacina.