TEOTWAWKI Toilet Options – Part 2, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Proper Two-Year Composting System There are various types of composting toilets but the remainder of this article refers to the inexpensive types, not the fancier commercial ones that compost in a chamber below the toilet. I’ll let you explore that option on your own. Proper humanure composting uses a two-pile system and only a small percentage of the material in the pile will be humanure, especially considering that your poop on average is only 25% solids. Once your compost pile has received humanure material for a year, plus kitchen, farm, yard, and garden waste, it then begins its resting/composting year. You’ll typically have it in a bin or “compost corral,” covered by a thick layer of straw, grass clippings, or leaves, and you won’t access it again until the resting year is over, during which you’ll be using pile #2. By the…




TEOTWAWKI Toilet Options – Part 1, by St. Funogas

…it just as they would blood from a blood bank. While patients aren’t actually fed poop on a spoon like they are cough medicine, the end result is the same: poop is tube fed into their stomachs and passes through their digestive tracts depositing the good germs from your personal poop along the way. With these thoughts in mind, I aim to show that after adding our own personal family humanure to the compost pile, at the end of a proper two-year composting cycle we have nothing to fear from pathogens and parasites while working with the resulting humus in the garden. Unfortunately, because of the “ick” factor, most people demonize even personal humanure instead of just public humanure which rightly deserves a bad rap. I hope to correct some of the misconceptions about personal poop so in a TEOTWAWKI world, you can not only avoid the unpleasantness of outhouses…




Four Letters Re: The Home Chicken Flock for Self-Reliance

…recent Sanitation letter, and the treatment of Schumer, the home-grown kind, not the political kind. I take a different view on “The Humanure Handbook” than you. Yes, there are risks in composting your own manure, but no more risk than kerosene, chainsaws, and firearms. Each of these three items have inherent risks that are life-threatening, but easily avoided thru training and safety precautions, just like humanure. And fortunately, the “Humanure Handbook” is available free on-line, and it provides all the details, and scientific studies that prove this is safe, and how to do it safely and easily. I will not go into the details of how, it’s all there in the book. But I will stress the advantages for people like me that plan to build a retreat, but don’t have a fortune to spend. 1. Huge Cost Savings. Not having to build a septic system will save thousands of…




Off Grid Waste Management and Sanitation, by Brother A.

…Adds an Important Caveat Lector: While some of the advice given by Jenkins in his Humanure Handbook is good, I soundly reject his assertion that “humanure” can be used in vegetable gardens in all climates and at all times of the year. Outside of the tropics, in three seasons there is simply too much risk of disease transmission. Unless all of the waste from carnivores and omnivores gets above the viability temperature for bacteria, then it is a biohazard. If you must use “humanure”, then use it only for flower beds and shrubbery. And for that, be sure to use a separate, dedicated set of spades and buckets that have their handles marked with red tape. Never use those tools in your vegetable garden!] After reading the book, I constructed a three-bin compost system similar to the one shown in the book. Each bin is about 5’x5’x4′. You start constructing…




A Prepping Reality Check – Part 3, by Mama Bear

…full? If you create an outhouse, can you dig it sufficiently far from your water source to be safe? One potential solution is proposed by The Humanure Handbook available online. This teaches how to build a simple, inexpensive composting toilet and how to manage the compost. It was designed for third world countries but has been approved by the New York Department of Health. Properly maintained, this system is very safe for the handling and disposal of human waste. If you have a septic tank, be prepared to suit up in a biological suit and dig it out when it is full and you will still need a way to deal with the waste that is removed from the tank. Burial is an option in some limited circumstances but does not eliminate the health hazard entirely as in many areas of the country (especially arid areas), the buried waste never…




Prepare to Garden Like Your Life Depends on It, by Prepared in Maine

…You should (through hours of practice) know how to use them properly and effectively without causing harm to yourself (blisters, strains, or worse) or damaging the tool or your crops. Your future garden will be organic. Over time, gardening will deplete the soil of macro and micro nutrients. There will be no “Weed be gone” or “Miracle Gro”. If you depend on those to grow your food, when the balloon goes up you are in trouble. For a peek at what to expect you can read a book on what happened to Cuba’s agriculture after the US embargo: Greening of the Revolution: Cuba’s Experiment with Organic Agriculture . These can be replaced through natural (some would say organic) additions to the soil. Animal manure or humanure or good compost The Complete Book of Composting or you can buy the new version: The Rodale Book of Composting: Easy Methods for Every…




How Does Your Garden Grow? (After TSHTF), by Tom from Colorado

…can add crushed pine bark or chopped up pine needles to add some acid into the soil. In all cases follow the same cautions regarding health and chemicals on additions to your pile. If using pine bark or needles, be sure the tree was healthy and not recently treated with pesticides or chemicals. Manure: There are many forms of manure that can be used on your garden. Starting with humanure (human manure). I do not recommend using this method unless you’ve studied up on the appropriate and safe ways to do so! If you are interested in this I suggest the book: The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure, by Joseph Jenkins. Other types of manure that may be available to you and are good to use are: chicken manure, cow manure, horse manure, rabbit manure, etc…  You’ll note that all these manures are from primarily herbivores (minus…




Family-Scale Permaculture Gardening, by Tod P.

…they can get a waiver if they apply for it.  In the end, the more that you recycle, the less you have to import.  So far, darling bride has rejected any discussion of composting human waste.  However, I entered a contest to win a free composting toilet and would have no problem using composted humanure in the orchard. Involve Others.  The more I try to do, the more I realize I cannot do it all myself.    The children and devoted wife have helped in matters plant, animal and fungal (mushrooms) – sometimes cheerfully 🙂  As they have become more adjusted to a rural lifestyle, sometimes they even come up with some of their own ideas for projects they would like to try.   I share my experiences, seeds, plants and excess produce with others who have similar interests and we all benefit from the exchange.  In the end, gardening is a…




Moving to the Country: If Not Now, When? – Part 1, by St. Funogas

…would have made. During that first winter, plans were drawn up, ideas kicked around, and eventually we had as many things figured out as we could. One determining factor was trying to save as much money as possible to make my funds stretch their furthest without sacrificing quality in the construction. I wanted everything inside the house to be wood, no sheetrock or paint anywhere, which meant spending more on building materials. She discovered an article about something called the “Lovable Loo,” a DIY composting toilet that was more or less a glorified kitty-litter box for humans. The idea sounded off-the-charts idiotic but I read the articles she printed for me and bought The Humanure Handbook. I decided she was right, not only was it a great idea on how to save thousands of dollars to put in a septic tank and leach line, but also a good way to…




SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

…in CONUS, does not work in other places. In the deep South, there is high humidity and temps, which some consider unsafe for humanure. Composting toilets are considered safe, but they create an artificial environment, using an electric fan, to dry out the biosolids, which is not the same as outside composting. Long ago, I visited Twentynine Palms, California, for a couple of weeks. They appeared to be spreading raw human biosolids on fields, but in the desert sun, high heat and low humidity, within an hour, it was dried out and the smell gone… By the end of the day, the biosolids were crumbling into smaller dry pieces when stepped on. This process works great in that environment. I wonder about biodigesters for the conversion of human waste and fuel production? Would the leftover biosolids be safe for fertilizing after the digesting process? Do any SurvivalBlog readers use biodigesters?”…




Surviving EMP: Suburban Circle Garden- Part 2, by Northwest Native Elder

…urine. [Editors note: As usual, SurvivalBlog will add a strong proviso here. In our opinion, the risks of this practice far outweigh any potential benefit. Please search the blog for “night soil” or “humanure” for more details.] This suggestion may be repulsive to many but watching a loved one die from lack of food from a crop failure or reduced yield is much more repulsive to me. Human waste fertilizer is used in many parts of the world quite successfully. You should avoid using human waste from anyone that is obviously ill. You will not have public sewer service anymore, so use one of your 5-gallon buckets for a toilet to collect waste. Urine may be used anytime, but human or animal feces will require a cooling off period, so it won’t “burn” your plants and kill them. Find an area of your yard that is far from everything else…




Letter Re: Good Use of Your Dog’s Waste

…going natural is that I have seen a lot of frogs and snakes, birds, et cetera out there, and there’s less yard work and less gasoline used. I also collect deer waste from the unfenced “back forty” with the same scooper and till it in to my large garden with similar good results. – Colorado Living at our Retreat. JWR Responds: That has some merit, but please see the SurvivalBlog archives for the MANY warnings about using the fecal waste from any meat-eating animals or humans on gardens. (Put “Humanure” in the search box.) Generally it is safe with fruit and nut trees but NOT so with garden vegetables! But even then there is the risk of infection because of unknowingly tracking in the waste to your house, followed by any cuts to feet or toes. Regards, JWR HJL Adds: I would add two things to JWR’s response. The manure…




What to Do With It, After It Hits the Fan, by Elizabeth J.

…the noodle that will slide on the top of a five gallon bucket.  It is pretty comfortable. I had to break out my emergency toilet after remodeling our home with tile, and the bathrooms were off limits for a full twenty four hours.  Cough.  I was glad I had the practice, and decided that I would much rather take my toilet camping than use a portal-john or the woods. The disposable Double Doodie bags can be used with these toilets, but they will not last long if you even have them at all. The best long term solution I have found is The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins. The book explains how to store and break down human waste and use it as fertilizer for a garden by simply using two separate compost piles. The two piles are distinguished as an “active” pile and an “inactive” pile. In this scenario,…




Letter Re: Lessons Learned From My Elders

…grew what was needed – most had the skills, experience, and land needed. Organic methods along with long established permaculture were the norm.  Small livestock such as chickens and sometimes rabbits and doves were part of the living larder. Everything depended on composting and the farmer with the biggest manure pile was considered rich.  Of course humanure was part of recycling necessary nutrients for a successful harvest season.  Several stories which contained significant life lessons were told by uncles who had to serve on the front. One uncle was a medical doctor and he told of a pampered young man who came in with a shoulder wound and he hysterically thought that he was mortally wounded.  The team of doctors assured him that he would do just fine, all to no avail.  This young city boy did die unnecessarily.  Later a farm boy came into the medical facility with a…




Agroforestry (Forest Gardening), by Prepared in Maine

…years. Amend your soil with good quality compost when planting and dig a hold three times the diameter of the root ball. Practice humanure (caveat emptor) as dug-in soil amendment in your fruit/nut arbor. You may have to learn about pruning the fruit and nut the species you grow. Sure trees and bushes will produce some fruit and nuts if you just leave them alone. However, if you learn to prune them you can increase your bounty several fold. For example, coppicing (or regrowing trees from cut stumps) is a useful technique for agroforestry that can be used for some fuel woods. Also, Pollarding (or cutting the top off) to get vigorous new growth for grazing can also be very useful. Both of these techniques also increase biodiversity in your agroforest– allowing you to grow other species of plants. A few hours reading online and a weekend hands-on course on…