Green way to take care of sewage...

OK I need help here. I am looking for a sanitary and green way to deal with sewage and plumbing. I grew up on a farm and we had a pond behind our house that our waste was evacuated too. It took care of all our sewage needs. The pond was the size of our house though and I don’t know if it was truly something green or not or understood how it even worked.

Anyway my fiancé and I are looking to buy 20-40 acres and build some Cob houses on them and want to come up with a good green way to deal with human waste which is as green as possible.

I really need your thoughts not only as too what process would be needed to deal with the waste but also the plumbing of it as I would love to find another way to do out plumbing with materials other than plastics in the ground if possible.

oops realized this post is on the wrong section. I tried to delete it and repost it but it wouldnt let me. If a moderator could move it for me I would appreciate it.

David, you should look into how EarthShips deal with sewage, it was green and economic if I remember right.  You can usually find the books I II & III at the library.  If not let me know and I'll look up the details for you and post back.  I haven't read it in a long time so I don't want to try and layout it out without refreshing my memory.

Composting toilets are the absolute best way to close the nutrient cycle! And they are not difficult to construct and manage, nor do they stink--or use water. And you get really rich compost at the end of it all. This link gives a full description: http://weblife.org/humanure/

the Humanure Book is a good read and a very green solution.
kent

The humanure handbook is okay, though you need only read pages 198-204 (I believe) as those are the only ones which actually discuss composting toilet systems. The rest of the book is political rhetoric based upon disproved claims from shoddy hacks, for instance the "hockey stick" graph which has been resoundingly disproved both by the failure of its predictions and the failure of the methodology. The methodology used for that graph, upon which virtually all of the al gore crowd's claims rest, results in the same graph regardless of the data entered. This means that the actual temperatures could approach zero degrees Kelvin, and the graph would still show an exponential rise in temperatures.

Had he stuck to what he knows, bucket system composting, the book would have been far shorter, but also far more accurate. I recommend to everyone to borrow a copy, or find it online (I understand that there is a free edition available online) rather than waste your money for 6 pages..

Check this out:  http://www.solartoilet.com/

The Solar Toilet is pretty interesting but after looking into the earthship system that too is very interesting and requires next to no maintenance while at the same time providing sustenance to your indoor garden. The Solar Toilet though is far less complex which is also a great thing.

If I can find  detailed specs on how the earthsip waste water and sewage system can be built and its restrictions I think that would be the better option in the long run as it would help provide food year round inside your own home regardless of the climate outside.

I like both of these systems. Thank you very much.

davidjackson wrote:
The Solar Toilet is pretty interesting but after looking into the earthship system that too is very interesting and requires next to no maintenance while at the same time providing sustenance to your indoor garden. The Solar Toilet though is far less complex which is also a great thing.

If I can find  detailed specs on how the earthsip waste water and sewage system can be built and its restrictions I think that would be the better option in the long run as it would help provide food year round inside your own home regardless of the climate outside.

I like both of these systems. Thank you very much.

Mike Reynolds system has major problems. I would love to see a follow up on the original Earth Ships he built and a report as to the solar toilets and the gray water indoor systems that he evolved towards.  I have sent messages to Earth Ship sights and nobody will tell me why Reynold's original solar toilet was discontinued. (I guess if ya want to talk to Mike Reynolds it's $200 an hour.)

The indoor gray water system would have major indoor humidity that I can't have around wood that i'd like to last for more than a few years. Mold loves high moisture and I don't want mold growing around the living space.

Jenkins' Humanure System has promise, but also has a few issues that are not covered in the Humanure Handbook.

I can turn raw manure and urine into fresh clean smelling dirt in two weeks in the summer with a slight modification of Jenkins' composting, but I don't know what winter will bring yet - I am working on it. It appears that It will take a lot longer to treat humanure in the winter.

If you have zoning and inspection issues complications are increased. 

Solviva is very interesting, and I've gleaned promising ideas from her writings, however her materials (internet/book) have been much disputed as hype and exaggeration.  Seems no one can pin the facts down with regard to her and the things she puts forth as 'truth' - the things she claims to have done, etc.

Funny Ronnie should bring up humility and then you, solviva - from her website I really loved the idea of an attached green house or solarium to both the house and barn - if one took the planter boxes in earthships designed to deal with grey water and put them into a greenhouse/solarium one could keep extreme moisture out of the house proper and where the plants could benefit from it.

We have been using a sawdust bucket system for three years now and it works fine. I empty the buckets into my perennial compost pile twice a year. Two of us will fill 8-10 5 gal. buckets every 6 months. We use a grey water system to dispose of everything else including a pee-only toilet that empties into a mulch basin. I have designed and installed grey water systems for new permitted construction that paralleled the standard septic system and were hooked up after the inspections were done. 

Jami McBride wrote:
Solviva is very interesting, and I've gleaned promising ideas from her writings, however her materials (internet/book) have been much disputed as hype and exaggeration.  Seems no one can pin the facts down with regard to her and the things she puts forth as 'truth' - the things she claims to have done, etc.

Funny Ronnie should bring up humility and then you, solviva - from her website I really loved the idea of an attached green house or solarium to both the house and barn - if one took the planter boxes in earthships designed to deal with grey water and put them into a greenhouse/solarium one could keep extreme moisture out of the house proper and where the plants could benefit from it.

I noticed that the pictures I have seen of the latest earthships have a wall (mostly glass) between the indoor garden/greenhouse/grey-water swamp (sorry wetlands) and the rest of the house. They haven't attached it to some other building because they use it as a large solar collector to heat the ground under the house.... store in the summer enough heat to last the winter. I watched a video of them catching a fish in it, adding veggies and making a "local" meal. I noticed they were careful about keeping the door between the two closed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-OZrtnx1SQ&feature=youtube_gdata

Hmm, not quite as clear as I thought. The video was not meant to show off the house but rather some features. This particular earthship is the top of the heap... more than any normal person could afford... mind, I could say that about most of them