Earth Equity News

Waste? Not. By Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, BGlobe, July 13, 2008. "In a world of rapidly diminishing resources, there's one we tend to overlook. It's easy to produce and extremely abundant... This neglected treasure is human waste. Urine is rich in nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, the three main ingredients in artificial fertilizer. Feces contains these nutrients, too, in smaller doses, and the methane it produces can be harnessed as biogas, a green energy source. Yet in most cultures, understandably, the first impulse is not to use waste wisely, but to get rid of it as quickly as possible... In America and other developed countries, the system... uses enormous quantities of clean water -- about 4,000 gallons per person each year -- and requires massive amounts of energy and money to treat the resulting sewage. But now a growing global movement aims to make sanitation more sustainable by changing how both rich and poor countries think about human waste -- recasting it as a valuable resource that is most costly when thrown away. Following a philosophy known as ecological sanitation, or 'ecosan'... the push to reform sanitation has gained currency around the world, driving innovations from toilet design to farming practices. And some sanitation reformers say they are even making headway into the most vexing question: How to get people to see promise in a substance they are taught from birth to find revolting."