Humanure or reutilizing your own body wastes   

The book I want to introduce, written by Joseph Jenkins, is about a very down to earth subject, what do you do with your feces. Most of us on the West operate on the out of sight, out of mind system. It is wasted.

You can read 'The Humanure Handbook' online at the link below or you can buy a copy.

The book explains how to compost human feces in such a way as to kill the pathogens. A summary of the method is -

• Use sawdust to bury manure. Sawdust provides carbon and this balances the nitrogen in the faeces. A good carbon-nitrogen balance is needed for composting. The Sawdust also keeps bad smells in and keeps flies away.
• Do not seperate urine and feces, as the urine provides moisture the microorganisms need.
• As well as adding the buckets from the toilet to the compost heap, throw on chunky materials like straw. This traps air pockets in the compost heap.
• Optionally, skewer the compost heap with sticks or pipes to provide more aeration.
• Let it sit for a year before using on plants

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

• http://www.weblife.org/humanure/index.html

The 3rd edition of the Humanure Handbook is free on the web here: http://jenkinspublishing.com/humanure_contents.html