Pep1: Greywater and Poop Safety

Pep1: Greywater and poop safety





Resources-
Art Ludwig's site
Humanure Handbook

White belt-
Watch Art Ludwig’s Laundry to Landsape
Read Art Ludwig’s Create an Oasis with Greywater
Know what household cleaners will contaminate your water
Know what household cleaners to use with a grey water system
Know what plants will filter what contaminates present in your grey water
Be able to determine water quality by turbidity, taste, hardness, and feel
Test water with a handheld meter
Effectively test your water for coliform bacteria
Effectively test your water for giardia lamblia
Calculate how much grey water you will produce daily
Use a Greywater system for one month
Use a composting toilet every day for one month

Green Belt-
Make and maintain an Art Ludwig style “Laundry to Landscape” grey water system
Have your water from your grey water system flow into a small pond
Use plants and mulch to effectively filter your your grey water
Build a flush water diverter
Make a wood chip bio filter to filter out food particles in your heavy grey water
Build an outdoor Wheelie Bin Composting Toilet with a Urine Diverter that produces zero smell at any point of the year

Brown Belt-
Build an indoor composting toilet that produces zero smell at any point of the year
Create a healthy pond that can sustain fish with a pond filled solely with greywater

Maybe I'm wrong, but this seems to be a category that doesn't really need a black belt. The concepts behind these things are pretty simple, and so is the implementation, so I don't know what could be added that would be on the Black Belt level of difficulty.

This list seems to be a little light on the composting toilet side... Anyone have any ideas on how to add to that half on the list?

Thanks!

jesse markowitz wrote:Pep1: Greywater and poop safety

White belt-

Use a Greywater system for one month
Use a composting toilet every day for one month

It seems like it would be hard achieve these results when the greywater systems and compost toilets aren't built until later belts. Maybe the construction stuff could be included earlier

This list seems to be a little light on the composting toilet side... Anyone have any ideas on how to add to that half on the list?

there is nothing about processing the compost created, building the bins, monitoring temps, keeping out animals, preventing leaching.

maybe since this is Paul's PE there should be a dry outhouse and poop beast.

there is a urine diverter on the wheelie bin, but nothing about how to effectively use the urine as a resource.

Using someone elses system for a while is a good first step before building your own system - you get a feel for how it works which informs your design processes.

Bear in mind that there are lots of different dry toilet approaches. Here's a few from my new book on septic tank options and alternatives:

Self-contained composting systems
Remote composting systems
Micro-flush systems
Electric drying systems
Chemical toilets

I'm not a fan of electric or chemical systems, but they do exist; hence their inclusion. Joseph Jenkins' lovable loo would be a remote composting system, and the outhouse would be a form of self-contained. These are just headings though for a wide range of different approaches. In terms of safety, I've read around this a lot for Irish planning submissions, and Joseph Jenkins' approach is actually the most solid. I bury my humanure in the garden under Comfrey, but that's not even as certain a method of sterilisation as JJ's thermophilic process.

Vis a vis grey water safety, I'd say that ensuring that the pipes are covered should be sufficient as long as you aren't close to groundwater resources.

In terms of urine reuse: Carol Steinfeld's Liquid Gold - the lore and logic of using urine to grow plants is a fun read. The other reference, which can be found online is Charles Sale's The Specialist. That's a lovely read.

Hope that helps a bit.