prep. ideas regarding hygiene

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HYGIENE - If the water and sewer systems won9t work, we will soon be in deep doo doo. - If the pumping stations for your town9s sewer system are down, sewer may back up into your home. See a plumber for installation of a gate valve to prevent this. ( A 3checkvalve2 may blow out if there is much pressure.) Also install one-way valves in any floor drains in your basement. (3Sewer Stops2 414-524-0230(Waukesha) or 414-886-8522(Racine) - Some people plan to empty the water from a toilet and place a garbage bag in the toilet, folding the top over after each use. This will work a lot better if the bag is used just for feces. We pass a lot more urine than feces, and the bag will fill very quickly if you use it for both. And the urine may leak out when you try to move the bag. Better to have a bucket for urine. - Urine can more easily be poured out under a bush outside, away from dwellings. Most of it will quickly evaporate. It is not as much of a health hazard as feces, which would just pile up if dumped outside, and which may contain pathogens. Fresh urine is sterile, and in fact may be used for cleansing wounds. - Diluted 4 to 1 with water, urine can be applied to your lawn and will not burn grass. It is high in nitrogen and good for your lawn. - Be sure to leave a cup or two of water in the toilet, to prevent back-up of sewer gas. - Feces does happen! What to do with it? Our family has purchased two Luggable Loos. (From Fleet Farm) This is a 5 gallon plastic pail with a removable plastic toilet seat. Again, this will work a lot better if reserved for feces. (Maybe you would like one for feces and one for urine, if you want a sturdy place to sit when you urinate.) - Feces will not smell if covered with a thin layer of organic material such as sawdust or ground up leaves. (Probably cat litter would also do. Maybe chopped up newspaper, though I have not tried it.) Each time you use your Loo, spread a thin layer of sawdust or whatever over the feces. We tried this. It does not stink! - If you use organic material to do this, you can actually add the contents of the bucket to your compost pile. Composted human manure is entirely safe and great for your garden. See book HUMANURE in Resources page. How to compost this usually wasted resource. Would be great for our soil and save our waters from terrible pollution if our society did this. - A fancy way to do this is with a composting toilet for around $900. Fleet Farm. Real Goods. Jade Mt. - Some folks plan to 3use a cat box2 of clumping litter, then scoop the goods into a garbage bag to store in the cold garage till they can get rid of it. - Wal-Mart and camping stores also sell a small flush unit for camping, but this unit is very impractical. Just for those addicted to flushing. It is a big waste of water to use it to flush your feces into a very small holding tank that you are then going to have to empty someplace. - Be sure to stock up on toilet paper. If you plan to compost, buy Seventh Generation toilet paper that is chemical free (available at Outpost) or another similar brand. - How will you do laundry? Jade Mt. and Real Goods sell a small portable hand-turned washer that uses pressure to force soapy water through 5 lbs. of laundry. (Locally avail. at 414-524-0230 or 414-886-8522) Store some biodegradable laundry powder. - If you are used to soft water, buy Boraxo and add it to laundry to soften the water. - Other items to have on hand for laundry are rubber gloves, clothesline, clothespins. more resources: - Humanure, J.C. Jenkins Guide to composting human manure w/ minimum technology, maximum safety. If our society did this, we9d have clean water and good soil! Very thought-provoking and very humorous, too. Also much unknown historical information. Easy system, too.

-- Shivani Arjuna (S Arjuna@aol.com), July 07, 1999

Answers

This information is well worth printing. It has answered a lot of questions for me.

Thanks Shivani

-- FOX (vixenden@aol.com), July 07, 1999.


The campjohn will work.When I take the family camping we use that wal-mart toilet. There are other ways. You can dump 1gal of water right into the toilet bowl and this will wash down. This is OK if you have a hand pump.Or you can use rain water from Rain gutters into a 55 gal can. If this can is put on a platform build 5 or 6 foot off the ground and neex to your bathroom [window].You could syphon the water into your toilet with a water hose. Or you could build a out house.[Think of what a porty potty looks like] If you dig a pit .Dig it 5 foot deep & 2foot by 2foot square. Your out house needs to be 75 foot from your well. If you have a septic tank in your back yard you could build a out house right over it. Look for the green grass in your yard ,this will be your brain field [4 pipes with lots of holes in them. this lets the water drain into the ground]. Theys 4 pipe come out of your septic tank [A concrete box about 6foot deep,10 foot long,& 6foot wide.This holdes all the solides.After about 10 years this should be pummed out.] one pipe comes from your house and into this tank. On top of this tank ,and about 2 foot from the end where the pipe from your house is a "clean out hole" This hole is about 2 foot by 2 foot. It is pluged with a concret plug and can be taken out. Just put your out house over it. WARNNING.cover all holes right away. 2 weeks ago here in Fla a little girl fell into a septic tank and drown ,becaus her father walked away from the hole for a short time and did not cover it If you use Wal-mart john or a 5gal bucket.Keep a bucker of lime on hand sprinkel a hand full in your bucket after each use. A 50lb bag of lime cost about $4 or 5 bucks.[its the same lime you put in your garden] People have used lime in there out house's to cover smell for hundred's of years

-- home dad (home_dad@yahoo.com), July 09, 1999.

Thanks for this info!

You write that you have bought "Luggable Loos. (From Fleet Farm) This is a 5 gallon plastic pail with a removable plastic toilet seat..." I WAS WONDERING if such a thing existed! Something that snaps on to 5-gal buckets to make a (halfway) comfortable toilet! So, how do I contact "Fleet Farm"?

-- alan (foo@bar.com), July 11, 1999.


CAMPMOR is on the web, they carry luggable loos...

-- flora (***@__._), July 11, 1999.

From my reading of Jenkins' HUMANURE HANDBOOK (which I highly recommend), it doesn't sound as though adding the humanure to your regular compost pile would be a good idea at all. It needs to be carefully managed, and preferably left for a period of time to thoroughly age. So having it segregated would be a safer idea.

I think it is critical, especially for those of us in the frozen north, to know by mid fall how we intend to handle this issue. Whether you are digging a pit or intending to compost (for which you also need a selection of both fine and coarse organic material on hand), waiting until January will be too late.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), July 12, 1999.



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