human excrement for fertilizer

[moe]

Hi, might sound like a gross question, but could you make human excrement work as a fertilizer in a (fishless) aquaponics system? What would be the issues surrounding this methodology. I don't think I'll be trying it myself personally but the idea came to mind haha.

[Fwoor]

I think somebody around here has used BSF (Black Soldier Flys) to decompose human excrement.
I believe there is issues with using it directly as a fertilizer though.

[bigdaddy]

Hi Moe,

Not a good idea from the health point of view.All your nasty bacteria and germs, come into play

Human waste has been looked at as a fertiliser before,after some processing.

It might be OK to have a fresh air pee in a bottle for your system, if you are that way inclined, but not a no2.

I would stay well away from it, and let the septics and sewers do their work.

Cheers.

[GaryD]

Hi Moe,

I'm with the rest of the crowd on this one.

There's a good reason why humans take in food and eliminate waste at opposite ends of their bodies. The two things are designed to be as far away as possible.

Human waste can be used as a fertiliser.....for trees and fodder plants.

Gary

[moe]

I just think its a fact of life that eventually we are going to have to recycle our waste. Putting minerals and fertilizers into the soil, consuming the produce and then pumping away the by product is unsustainable.

Three examples of human waste reuse come to mind.

Mass scale composting I saw on the ABC program "landline", where they composted human waste. By the time it was ready you couldn't tell that it was human. It just looked like a big pile of dark dirt.

Second, small scale composting toilets. It basically looks like a compost bin underneath the house and is processed by heat, killing germs/bacteria etc.

Lastly I saw a house on the program "grand designs" which hooked up his sewage to to a small willow grove. The willow grows fast and the home owners then cut it periodical for firewood.

That being said, i'm probably more inclined to use the waste a fodder production, rather than getting the newspaper and squatting over the fish haha.

Oh and a quick question, why is animal manure, ie sheep, cow less dangerous when it comes to using it as a fertilizer (directly)?

[Fwoor]

Moe,
I believe we (as a planet with a very significant timeline) have recycled human waste many times over already.
The main issue, I think, Is the timeframe for decomposition.

To answer your question, As I understand it there are pathogens and microbes in human faeces that are seriously bad for ingestion.

Further reading to be had here on wikipedia.

[moe]

Thanks Fwoor,

heres an extract...

One method that has been successful is known as "humanure" where the material is composted with kitchen refuse and high-carbon materials, such as yard waste, heated through biological activity (fermentation), and kept for an optimal period of time, whereby the pathogens are destroyed. Many people in the United States and other countries have been practicing this method for over ten years now without any negative consequences.[1]

>>The main issue, I think, Is the timeframe for decomposition.

What do you mean?

[Fwoor]

>>The main issue, I think, Is the timeframe for decomposition.

What do you mean?

I mean, Having something decompose for 5 minutes is vastly different to having it decompose for 10 years.

As your extract mentions "...kept for an optimal period of time..."

I feel that human excrement can be used as long as it has sufficient time to decompose and kill off any of the nasty pathogens.

P.S. You can use the quote buttons at the bottom right of the messages to get the blue bubbles around the quotes

[GaryD]

Hi Moe,

Oh and a quick question, why is animal manure, ie sheep, cow less dangerous when it comes to using it as a fertilizer (directly)?

It comes down to transmission of diseases. There are relatively few diseases that humans can contract from sheep and cattle.....where there are hundreds that we can contract from each other and ourselves.

Incidentally, organic food production standards generally forbid the application of animal manures that have not been composted because of the potential to spread E coli.

The animal from which humans are most likely to contract disease is the pig......and the reason for this is that, of the farm animals, the pig has a digestive system (and a diet) that is most similar to humans.

I'm not against us taking more responsibility for our waste - quite the contrary. I think there are many ways of processing and using human waste and lots of reasons for doing so.

There are many trees and fodder plants that can benefit from such waste.


Gary

[MarkEinOz]

The pathogen of most concern amongst MANY others, is E.Coli. Whilst it is relatively easy to breakdown the bacteria itself in a oxygenated environment, the toxin it produces is the real problem and can kill you DEAD!

And don't even get me started on Hep A.

And considering AP focuses on fresh and salad vegetables your water would be a soup of potential disaster. The best answer for now, would be to focus on integrated livestock and use composted rabbit, fowl, quail manures in any supplementary fertilizing regime.

Let the water board be responsible for your waste. But I do applaud your creative thoughts!