{"id":45432,"key":"Composting_human_feces","title":"Composting human feces","latest":{"id":1206668,"timestamp":"2025-11-27T20:36:31Z"},"content_model":"wikitext","license":{"url":"https://www.appropedia.org/Appropedia:Copyrights","title":"CC-BY-SA-4.0"},"source":"[[File:Post-composting area for pre-dried faeces. (4205631959).jpg|thumb]]\n\n[[Composting]] is a well studied method to treat human [[feces]] to sanitise, remove human microbial pathogens and stabilise.\n\nMany systems are in operation at a variety of scales.\n\nAt the largest scale, some municipal sewage treatment works use composting of untreated or partially treated sludges with other materials (often wood waste or other green and plant materials) to compost under controlled conditions. These systems often use large machinery to aerate the large compost heaps (also known as windrows) to aid growth of beneficial aerobic microbes. An example of this is at the [[Arcata marsh compost|Arcata]] wastewater treatment works, where a system is in use to force air into the windrows using a pipe laid into the concrete beneath it.\n\nAt much smaller scales, many [[WASH]] systems are in use which rely on [[Composting toilets]] and [[Composting Latrines]] to provide sanitation to communities.\n\nIn all scales, the concept is the same: human feces is a rich substrate of potentially useful plant nutrients. However it also represents a threat to human health when handled without proper treatment or allowed to contaminate water supplies. Composting aims to encourage the conditions for the growth of beneficial aerobic micro-organisms as these will create the conditions to aid destruction of harmful pathogenic microbes in the feces.\n\n{{Page data\n| license = CC-BY-SA-3.0\n| keywords = Composting, Material reuse, feces\n| sdg = SDG12 Responsible consumption and production\n}}\n\n[[Category:Composting]]\n[[Category:Material reuse]]"}