Completing the Nutrient Cycle

When we think of using human waste as fertilizer, we tend to think of biosolids. But solids aren’t the only human waste products that could be used in an agricultural setting.https://t.co/864PA5DW02

— Modern Farmer (@ModFarm) August 28, 2021

Items of Interest, 15 February 2012

Redeeming America's Political Culture

Tom Piatak, A Warring Visionary
A review of The Crusader: The Life and Tumultuous Times of Pat Buchanan
by Timothy Stanley

Counterpunch:
GARETH PORTER, Obama’s Zig Zag Maneuvers with Israel and Iran
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, Obama, the Human Rights Hypocrite and The Divine Right of Money
NOAM CHOMSKY, Empire and Its Discontents and American Decline in Perspective (Original TomDispatch)
THOMAS H. NAYLOR, The EU Plays the China Card

Relocalization:
Rod Dreher links to this interview with Craig Bartholomew: Where am I? The Middle-Class Crisis of Place. Those commenting at Mr. Dreher's blog don't get real Christian spirituality: the diversity of vocations and the order of charity.

Building Houses As If They Mattered

Coffee and tea anyone? - Mt. Shastians bring Transition and Tea Party together

BALLE Blog: 10 Reasons for Financial Optimism (If You Invest Locally) - 5 Ways to Make Your Dollars Make Sense (EB)

Rob Hopkins: ‘Breathing new life into the concept of resilience’: the notes from my ‘Four Thought’ talk (mp3)

Breaking through the myths: New book seeks to redefine urban farming
Twighlight Greenaway, Grist
(More links on urban agriculture)

Orion Magazine: What Love Looks Like
A conversation with Tim DeChristopher by Terry Tempest Williams

Sustainability:
A country for old men by Gene Lodsdon (EB) (Humanure!)

Paul Kingsnorth & Friends Discuss “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist” (EB)

Energy:
Tom Murphy, Fossil fuels: I’m not dead yet (EB)

Feminism:
All About Women, What Big Sister Doesn’t Want You To Know

Catholic:
Mass of Installation of the First Ordinary of the Ordinariate in the USA
The Tyranny of Misunderstood Freedom (Jim Kalb: Turnabout)
The Truth About Same-Sex Attraction
Mischievous Monks and Naughty Nuns? Scholar re-examines the illicit sexual accusations against monasteries in England during the dissolution
Top Five Dating Tips for Men
The End of the Affair by William Fahey
Moral Theology 101

Music:
Wayne Taylor and Appaloosa
'After the End of Music History' Conference at Princeton

Mexico:
Border Battleground

Misc:
8 Elevators You Need to See to Believe
Linsanity Heads Eats, Linfects China, Taiwan
Step Up to the Plate, From Baseball Bats to Chopsticks

Why not just humanure?

Japanese scientist creates edible meat alternative made from recycled human waste
Japanese Scientists Create Meat From Poop: "Because Tokyo Sewage asked him to. Tokyo is swimming in sewage mud, it seems, and there's only one way it can save itself and that's eat it."

Really? There is no other way to recycle the "waste"? Tokyo needs to take bigger steps towards sustainability. How much energy is required by the process of creating this "food product"?

The Humanure Handbook (Joseph Jenkins, Inc.)
Starting a New Humanure Compost Pile
Humanure: the end of sewage as we know it?

Related:
Breaking Down the Bones: How to Compost Meat and Other Animal Products

More on humanure

Recycling animal and human dung is the key to sustainable farming
Kris De Decker, Low-tech Magazine
Flushing the water closet is handy, but it wreaks ecological havoc, deprives agricultural soils of essential nutrients and makes food production dependent on fossil fuels.

Rod Dreher: Humanure? Run for your life!

I believe I have a copy of The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure, but I'm not sure which edition it is.

Joseph Jenkins, Inc. - Humanure Headquarters
The Humanure Handbook - Center of the Humanure Universe

JMG on humanure

In the dark with both hands

by John Michael Greer

More:
weblife.org: Humanure Handbook: Contents
Joseph Jenkins, Inc. - Humanure Headquarters
Humanure: Journey to Forever organic garden
Humanure! / Ultimate enviros turn brown to green
Farmer Scrub's blog: Our Humanure Setup
The Humanure Handbook :: Chelsea Green Publishing

Humus, Humility, and Humanure

Humus, Humility, and Humanure
by Dana Visalli

Humanure can be easily and safely composted and made completely safe to use as fertilizer. For the full details, consult The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure by Joseph Jenkins, available at your favorite bookseller or as a loan from the PSM office.

Briefly, the three critical elements to composting humanure are


1) Creating a compost pile that has the necessary carbon: nitrogen (C/N) ratio for aerobic bacteria to break the manure down into humus. The ideal C/N ratio for bacterial decomposition is 30:1. Humanure has a C/N ratio of about 10/1 (it is high in nitrogen), so it is necessary to add high carbon material like straw to the compost pile. When properly built, a humanure compost pile does not give off any offending odor.

2) Adequate oxygen. The bacteria that break down the manure are aerobic—they require oxygen to function properly. Oxygen is easily made available by using bulky, hollow material such as straw in the compost pile.

3) Heat. Aerobic bacterial action produces heat; compost piles can warm to 140 degree or higher. Complete pathogen destruction in the humanure is guaranteed by arriving at a temperature of 143 degrees F for one hour, 122 degrees for one day, or 115 degrees for a week.

4) Time. Letting the compost pile “cure” for a year after it has finished the aerobic decomposition will offer a guarantee that all potential pathogens are destroyed.


The end product of this decomposition process is humus—organic matter rich in critical nutrients, like the composted steer or chicken manure we purchase at the feed store. These nutrients give life to plants, which give life to us, and then they go back into the living soil in an endless cycle.

The Latin root for humus, humility, and humanure are all the same, and translates as “earth.” Re-integrating our lives with the endless cycling of nutrients and elements is an act of humility in that it brings us out of the imaginary world we create inside our heads and back down to earth, which is a good place to be.

Dana Visalli is a biologist living in Twisp, WA. He is the president of The Partnership for a Sustainable Methow (www.sustainablemethow.net) and the editor of The Methow Naturalist (www.methownaturalist.com)