Human manure or ‘nightsoil’ makes great crop fertiliser – but attitudes to poo-grown produce differ drastically
Human manure or ‘nightsoil’ makes great crop fertiliser – but attitudes to poo-grown produce differ drastically
A tale of two poos - attitudes towards the agricultural use of human excretion-based fertiliser differ between Japan and England as new research shows.
I was pretty sure dusease concerns were the primary reason for not using human waste. Was hoping the article addressed that, but it did not.
Also toxic waste
For the same reason predators have higher levels of bioaccumulated toxins in their flesh, humans have much higher levels of all kinds of toxic sludge in their poop and blood and whatnot
The only thing I've ever heard about it is that you'd have to wash all produce you bought and my exact response has always been "Are you people not washing your produce after purchase!?"
Edit: Also a lot of y'all seem to think we'd be throwing raw untreated human waste directly into the fields. We don't even do that with animal fertilizer. It's treated waste that removes a lot of the toxins that would cause us to get sick (again only if you're not washing your produce which you should always do regardless)
Raw waste is, of course, nasty stuff until all the dangerous bacteria have been killed off, either by heat or anaerobic digestion.
Right, but the entire reason to prefer herbivore waste is because it is much less likely to spread disease when handled improperly.
Just don't forget that medications and drugs can be found in your shit. Nightsoil fertilizer would bring this out to the fields and crops.
We'll just keep some humans that don't get any of that ezpz
Organic humans, no antibiotics, no vacc... Wait we already have that group.
I'm just glad they made a diarrhea truck to spread the nightsoil.
I thought human waste is full of PFAS, which then goes into the soil, which then go into the crops, which then continue to poison everyone.
As long as we make sure it isn't spreading disease, it doesn't bother me at all. Humans did it for centuries anyway from the Anglo-Saxons to the Japanese and I'm sure more.
It makes great crop fertilizer as long as it is properly composted. There is a really good reason to prefer animal waste, especially herbivore waste, because it comes with a much lower risk of spreading diseases and parasites if handled less than ideally.
Bruh. Just use milorganite. It’s processed human shit.
There’s plenty of non-human feces we can use for fertilizer. And food waste/compost.
In my experience I thought human feces only belonged in meetings at work, how wondrous it has other uses.
I felt very apprehensive and felt similarly to a lot of comments here. But The Humanure Handbook is an excellent read and clears up a lot of the misconceptions about human waste, including the problems with it and how to handle it. https://humanurehandbook.com/contents.html
...it's manure. It's literally shit. "Oh no, it's not cow dung, it's people ^dung , it's people ^dung !
How tf do you think we've been managing to grow crops in the massive amounts we have? Pure wishful thinking?
Suburbia/urbanism has rotted the brains of people. We need more local farms and grow areas so people will grow tf up.
How tf do you think we've been managing to grow crops in the massive amounts we have? Pure wishful thinking?
The real answer is industrial chemical production processes and an increase in understanding of a lot of things. Traditional farming using dung is sooo last century; It's inefficient, significantly increases the risk of various pathogens and is hard to control leading to excess runoff and plant damage.
The reason more traditional methods are being resurrected is because those processes really benifit from scaling which all but gauranties monopolization leading to price gouging etc.
And what "traditional methods" is that? Something from two centuries ago? How about specifications?
If you have a backyard garden, you can compost your own feces without having to worry about the bacteria as much because it's your own.
Bacteria, sure. Maybe. But fecal parasites? Incompletely composting your own feces is a great way to help your intestinal parasites complete their life cycle by consuming their eggs 😆
