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Re composting toilets, there's a 4-story laboratory in Auckland NZ with a compost system - built 2004 (https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED0404/S00113/pm-opens-un

Re composting toilets, there's a 4-story laboratory in Auckland NZ with a compost system - built 2004 (https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED0404/S00113/pm-opens-unique-green-science-building.htm https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED0404/S00113/pm-opens-uniqu...). Normally councils here are VERY stuck in the past but in this case they had no ability to pipe sewage (due to critical pipework already surrounding the building). The real main issue is councils and their consultants all being stuck in the past and not wanting to do anything new which many regard as a threat (I'm a designer/planner so see this every day). Money is the only way such people understand the world so we have to help people see that waste has a very high cost - polluted rivers and oceans cannot easily be repaired but as everyone owns them no-one has responsibility.

jelliclesfarm 6y ago
Thank you. I just finished reading the article. I am interested in designing small cities. The future is curt states but what we can start by creating self sustaining micro cities first? I am very disheartened by how we handle our waste water. I have also been reading about sewage systems in mohenjadaro and Greece and roman and Asia and India. http://indiafacts.org/best-practices-in-indic-hygiene-sanitation-and-environmental-protection/ http://indiafacts.org/best-practices-in-indic-hygiene-sanita... : quoting; [..] It is interesting that the miasma theory prevalent in Europe promoted the dumping of human waste into water bodies. According to this obsolete theory, diseases are caused by bad air or foul odours. The water closet or flush toilets were hailed by Londoners because it removed smells from housing in accordance with the miasma theory. Excreta was disliked only for its smell not for its potential to cause disease. The more it was dumped in the Thames, the safer the residents of London felt [16]. “The city’s sewer commissioners proudly noted the huge volume of human waste that the city’s toilets efficiently deposited into the river; twenty nine thousand cubic yards in the spring of 1848 and eighty thousand cubic yards by the winter of 1849.”[..] [..] However, it must be remembered that throughout history, the task of handling wastes and faeces has never been a dignified one. [18] Until as late as the 20th century, human excrement had to be removed physically from cesspits and privies in Europe. [16,18] The European lower-caste people who did the dirty job were called gongfermours (French) or gong farmers in English. [18] The gong farmers of England were only allowed to work at night, so they were also called nightmen. They came into respectable neighbourhoods in the dead of the night, emptied cesspits and carted away the wastes to the boundaries of the cities. They were required to live in certain areas at the fringes of the city and could not enter the city during daytime. There were severe penalties for breaking this rule. Even after water closets arrived on the scene, their contents flowed into cesspits for a long time and needed to be cleaned out by nightmen. [18][..] Also: https://www.harappa.com/blog/mohenjo-daro-street-drains https://www.harappa.com/blog/mohenjo-daro-street-drains And https://www.rwaag.org/sanitation https://www.rwaag.org/sanitation [..] Wastes in the house were collected in jars and carried by the maids to a pile by the front door of the house. Servants then carried the wastes to the fields to be spread out as fertilizer. Any elimination was then done into jars or pots. Such chamber pots can be identified by their low shape and the presence of a lid. This probably was the method used until near the Roman period when latrines were used. The Romans built continuously flushing latrines which had a stone with a hole in it mounted over a continuously flowing trough. The water was provided by an aqueduct and carried to well-built sewers. The Romans provide no treatment though, so the outlets to the rivers were quite polluted. This did keep their cities relatively clean. The Greek cities often dumped the waste into the streets. This practice was more prone to the spread of disease.[..]

jelliclesfarm 6y ago

Thank you. I just finished reading the article. I am interested in designing small cities. The future is curt states but what we can start by creating self sustaining micro cities first? I am very disheartened by how we handle our waste water. I have also been reading about sewage systems in mohenjadaro and Greece and roman and Asia and India. http://indiafacts.org/best-practices-in-indic-hygiene-sanitation-and-environmental-protection/ http://indiafacts.org/best-practices-in-indic-hygiene-sanita... : quoting; [..] It is interesting that the miasma theory prevalent in Europe promoted the dumping of human waste into water bodies. According to this obsolete theory, diseases are caused by bad air or foul odours. The water closet or flush toilets were hailed by Londoners because it removed smells from housing in accordance with the miasma theory. Excreta was disliked only for its smell not for its potential to cause disease. The more it was dumped in the Thames, the safer the residents of London felt [16]. “The city’s sewer commissioners proudly noted the huge volume of human waste that the city’s toilets efficiently deposited into the river; twenty nine thousand cubic yards in the spring of 1848 and eighty thousand cubic yards by the winter of 1849.”[..] [..] However, it must be remembered that throughout history, the task of handling wastes and faeces has never been a dignified one. [18] Until as late as the 20th century, human excrement had to be removed physically from cesspits and privies in Europe. [16,18] The European lower-caste people who did the dirty job were called gongfermours (French) or gong farmers in English. [18] The gong farmers of England were only allowed to work at night, so they were also called nightmen. They came into respectable neighbourhoods in the dead of the night, emptied cesspits and carted away the wastes to the boundaries of the cities. They were required to live in certain areas at the fringes of the city and could not enter the city during daytime. There were severe penalties for breaking this rule. Even after water closets arrived on the scene, their contents flowed into cesspits for a long time and needed to be cleaned out by nightmen. [18][..] Also: https://www.harappa.com/blog/mohenjo-daro-street-drains https://www.harappa.com/blog/mohenjo-daro-street-drains And https://www.rwaag.org/sanitation https://www.rwaag.org/sanitation [..] Wastes in the house were collected in jars and carried by the maids to a pile by the front door of the house. Servants then carried the wastes to the fields to be spread out as fertilizer. Any elimination was then done into jars or pots. Such chamber pots can be identified by their low shape and the presence of a lid. This probably was the method used until near the Roman period when latrines were used. The Romans built continuously flushing latrines which had a stone with a hole in it mounted over a continuously flowing trough. The water was provided by an aqueduct and carried to well-built sewers. The Romans provide no treatment though, so the outlets to the rivers were quite polluted. This did keep their cities relatively clean. The Greek cities often dumped the waste into the streets. This practice was more prone to the spread of disease.[..]