Intercambio de informacion sobre la construccion de inodoros ecologicos secos.
Exchange of information about the building of Ecological Dry Toilets (recent entries are in English, too).
(Comentarios: canaday2 ARROBA gmail PUNTO com.)
Help wanted for a Container-based Sanitation
Project in Ecuador(En español a continuación)
In the
fishing village of Chamanga, in the province of Esmeraldas, over 100
Urine-diverting Dry Toilets (UDDTs) have been built and there has been an
effort to establish a microenterprise to maintain them, but it lacks economic
sustainability up till now.
The goal is
to convert the fertilizer power of the urine to money to pay community members
to collect and process the excrement of all of the users. One complication is
that the local climate is dry and water for irrigation is very expensive, so we
would like to explore microalgae, macroalgae, or plants that can be raised in
ponds of seawater. One product could be carrageenan, which is a food additive
that is extracted from macroalgae. Another option may be to find productive
plants that thrive on pure urine, if any exist.
There are
numerous shrimp ponds around the town and these require large inputs of
nitrogen, so human urine, which is very rich in nitrogen, could potentially be
used for this, except that one would worry about the pharmaceuticals that
people consume and are excreted in their urine. (For example, what would birth
control pill chemicals do to the shrimp?) Filtering with biochar has been found
to remove many of these chemicals and maybe solar UV could destroy these
directly. The urine could also be used to fertilize microalgae that are later
fed to the shrimp, after the pharmaceuticals have hopefully broken down. (Waste
from fishing and shrimp, including shells and heads of shrimp and bones and
scales of fish, is abundantly available and may be a useful raw material for
different processes.)
The village
has over 5000 residents, no running water, and no sewer. Low quality water is
brought by truck from the nearest river and sold by the tank. In my opinion, a
sewer would be counterproductive, as it would contaminate the Cojimíes Estuary
that the community depends on, even if there is wastewater treatment, which is
seldom effectively done in Ecuador. If this microenterprise is successful, it
could potentially finance the construction of UDDTs for the entire village, in
order to obtain more urine to fertilize with.
The project
to build these UDDTs was carried out by the Somos Ecuador Foundation and a
couple of small grants were received to try to get the maintenance operation
going, but it is still flailing. There had been a charge of US$ 0.75 per sack
of feces that was taken away, but in many cases the users could not even pay
this. In addition, collection was stopped at the beginning of the Coronavirus
Pandemic for the security of the workers.
Here is an
excellent video about this UDDT project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-RuitT_WAY&t=30s
We would
like to invite PhD students who are looking for a research topic, long-term
volunteers (maybe for 6 months or a year), and donor organizations to focus on
this case. I also hope to be directly involved in getting this up and running.
Please contact: Chris Canaday, canaday2@gmail.com,
inodoroseco.blogspot.com
////////
Se busca apoyo para
un Proyecto de Saneamiento Basado en Contenedores en el Ecuador
En el pueblo de pescadores de Chamanga, en la provincia de
Esmeraldas, se han construido más de 100 Inodoros Ecológicos Secos con
Separación de la Orina (UDDTs, por sus siglas en inglés) y ha habido un
esfuerzo para establecer una microempresa para mantenerlos, pero hasta ahora no
se logrado su sostenibilidad económica.
La meta es convertir el poder fertilizante de la orina en
dinero para poder pagar unos miembros de la comunidad a recolectar y procesar
el excremento de los usuarios. Una complicación es que el clima local es seco y
el agua de riego es muy cara, por lo tanto quisiéramos explorar las microalgas,
macroalgas o plantas que podrán cultivarse en piscinas de agua marina. Un producto
podría ser el carragenano, que es un importante aditivo alimenticio extraído de
ciertas macroalgas. Otra opción podría ser la de encontrar una planta
productiva que pueda fertilizarse directamente con la orina pura, en caso que
exista aquella planta.
Alrededor del pueblo, hay muchas camaroneras mucha
fertilización con nitrógeno, entonces la orina humana, que contiene mucho
nitrógeno, podría servir para esto, solo que nos preocuparíamos de los fármacos
que las personas consumen y salen en la orina. (Por ejemplo, ¿qué efectos
tendrán los químicos de la píldora anticonceptiva sobre los camarones?) Se ha
demostrado que al filtrar la orina a través de biocarbón se puede quitar muchos
de estos químicos y quizás la luz ultravioleta del sol podría destruirlos
directamente. Por otro lado, se podría fertilizar las microalgas con la orina
y, después, darles de comer a los camarones luego de que (ojalá) se
descompongan los fármacos. (Desechos de la pesca y la industria camaronera,
como huesos, escamas, cáscaras y cabezas, son muy abundantes ahí y podrían
servir para diferentes procesos.)
Más de 5000 personas viven en Chamanga, no hay agua entubada
y tampoco alcantarillado. Unos camiones traen agua de mala calidad que venden
por tanque. En mi opinión, un alcantarillado sería contraproductivo, ya que
contaminaría el Estuario de Cojimíes, donde la comunidad pesca y crían
camarones, aun si se tratan las aguas servidas, lo que pocas veces se hace con
eficacia en el Ecuador. Si la microempresa tiene éxito, podría financiar la
construcción de UDDTs para todo el pueblo, con la finalidad de obtener más
orina para la fertilización.
El proyecto para construir estos inodoros fue llevado a cabo
por la Fundación Somos Ecuador y se recibieron un par de pequeñas becas para intentar
de iniciar la microempresa, pero todavía está débil. Hubo un cobro de US$ 0.75
por saco de heces que se retira, pero muchos de los usuarios no lo podrían
pagar. Además, se paralizó la recolección al inicio de la pandemia de
Coronavirus, por la seguridad de los trabajadores.
Este excelente video describe el proyecto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-RuitT_WAY&t=30s
Quisiéramos invitar a estudiantes de PhD que están buscando
un tema de investigación, voluntarios de largo plazo (tal vez 6 meses o un año)
y organizaciones donantes para enfocar en este caso. También espero participar
directamente en el establecimiento y fortalecimiento de esta microempresa. Por
favor, contacten a Chris Canaday (canaday2@gmail.com,
inodoroseco.blogspot.com) para mayores informaciones.
The Shitty State of Human Sanitation (Part 1: The Problem, originally published in 2013 in http://www.chekhovskalashnikov.com/water-sanitation/Estoy traduciéndolo al español.)
For Chekhovs Kalashnikovs very first interview on Change Makers,
we will be talking with Chris Canaday, a biologist from
California, about the broken and dangerous state of human and water
sanitation systems and the solution to this problem that is damaging our
environment and health.
I
think that, before we talk about this revolutionary sanitation system,
it is important to touch on why the current system is broken. Can you
elaborate on how the contemporary western toilet came into being and the
devastating effect that it has had on the environment and our health?
It is also reported that she was so obese that she had trouble
squatting and someone decided that it was not dignified for the queen to
squat. They gave her a new porcelain throne and then, via mass
psychology, all the Western World has wanted the same thing as the queen
of England, even if it is not good for them or their environment.
The modern flush toilet has contributed greatly to the cleanliness of
cities, but has not really solved the problem, just moved it farther
away. Water always gets recycled and there are always more people living
downstream. Developed countries spend millions and probably billions of
dollars trying to clean up their wastewater, but never really succeed.
The modern flush toilet is largely based on the concept of “out
of sight, out of mind”. It is also a prime example of selfishness:
cleaning up the environment close to the user, while contaminating
everyone’s general environment.
It is interesting to note that at the same time that Water Closets were being developed, Earth Closets
were, too. There was even one reportedly used in Buckingham Palace for a
while. Over time, Water Closets won out as the standard for Modern
Western Society, likely due to their ease of use and maintenance, as
long as piped water comes to the house and sewage goes away.
Another key way in which the current, water-based sanitation system
is “broken” is that it is based on the illogical, unsustainable and
linear concept that natural resources should be used once and then
thrown away. Flush toilets not only throw away huge amounts of water,
but also all the nutrients found in the excrement.
With a simple push of a lever, we effectively deplete our
agricultural soils and contribute to the eutrophication of rivers, lakes
and oceans and, in them, the formation of hypoxic dead zones.
If these nutrients were instead given back properly to the soil (and
if the population were stable), we could forget about the non-renewable,
unsustainable chemical fertilizers that are currently the basis of
Modern Western Society’s food production. Those who learn to recycle
these nutrients in an orderly way now will have every advantage in the
future when these chemicals run out, and when there are possibly 9
billion people on Planet Earth, all wanting to eat.
Water is so essential and vital that we simply cannot live without
it. Nonetheless, modern homes in developed countries dump between 25 and
40% of their water down the toilet, and the number engineers use in
Ecuador is closer to 75%, given the high incidence of unmaintained
toilets through which water flows constantly. We need to promote a
culture of respect for water, as a source of life, which should never be
treated as a garbage dump.
If these are not enough reasons to consider the current water-based
toilet to be broken, obsolete and illogical, please consider the
following unreliable, unhygienic and not-so-easy aspects of flush
toilets:
They often need to be scrubbed after each use, if they are going to be presentable.
They frequently need to be flushed more than once for everything to go away.
They occasionally get plugged and need to be cleared with a plunger, with sewage splashing or overflowing out.
They make so much noise that everyone in the building can hear when they get flushed.
The great turbulence of flushing creates a plume of microscopic,
fecally contaminated water droplets that then land on everything in the
bathroom, including the toothbrushes.
In the interest of full disclosure, flush toilets can be
somewhat ecologically and socially sustainable in places where water is
abundant, human settlement is dispersed, and the soil is absorbent, such
that septic tanks (for settling out the solids) and leach lines (=
drain fields; for allowing the contaminated water to absorb into the
soil) can work properly, at more than 16 meters from wells or streams,
and if the septic tank sludge is treated in reedbeds.
Constructed wetlands are also important tools for treating
wastewater, but they require a fair amount of land. On top of this, who
knows how far all the different modern synthetic chemicals can travel in
the water and the soil? So, in summary, it is most prudent to not mix
our excrement in water from the beginning, especially if we have large
numbers of people grouped together in a city.
So the reason Colon Cancer is skyrocketing in the Western
World today is because we aren’t completely clearing our bowels, thanks
to a custom-made invention for a morbidly obese queen?
Yes, and not just colon cancer, but also constipation and
hemorrhoids. The natural position human beings have used when
defecating, over millions of years, since before we were people, has
always been squatting. In this position, the outlet is straight and the
body can eliminate its waste more easily, efficiently and completely.
When sitting, the outlet is not straight, certain muscles contradict
each other, one needs to push more, and not all of the feces come out,
so there is more constipation, hemorrhoids, and the colon never gets a
rest from being in contact with festering feces, causing a greater incidence of colon cancer).
Squatting has the added advantage that it is more hygienic,
especially with respect to women, since the user’s private parts do not
touch anything. (Most women apparently never actually sit on a public
toilet, but actually sort of hover above, which is much more
uncomfortable than squatting all the way down.) Also, the squatting
position is more accessible and intuitive for little children, since the
floor is the same height for everyone, while a toilet bowl made for
adults is much too big, uncomfortable and unsafe for them. Furthermore,
in Urine-diverting Dry Toilets (UDDTs), the squatting position allows
for a more certain separation of the urine and the feces, plus it is
easier and cheaper to build.
In Ecuador, where does all the sanitation waste go? How much water is used and what effect does this have on the environment?
Almost all of Ecuadorian cities’ wastewater goes straight into rivers or
bays, except for Cuenca, Shushufindi, and a few other cases where
wastewater treatment is done.
The amount of water is huge and the excrement’s nutrients fertilize
algae that end up dying and thus consuming the available oxygen in the
water, creating the eutrophication and hypoxic zones mentioned above.
But the biggest threat is that of pathogens in the water, which are
responsible for the majority of disease in the world.
Many people have daily contact with rivers, for bathing, washing
clothes or drinking, even only minutes after others have defecated in
it, so it is obvious how disease can proliferate. Need more proof?
Check out this:
Human Sanitation in Bumbay, India
I can just imagine the collective shit and piss from the
hundreds of thousands of people living in Ecuadorian cities like Coca,
Tena, and Puyo flowing into these Amazonian Rivers. What I find scary
however is that this problem is not confined to Ecuador or even the
South American Amazon but is worldwide. What happens to communities that live on river banks, lakes,
and areas prone to flooding with respect to worms, bacteria, and
water-bourne diseases, like cholera that can be prevented with this
system?
Yes, it is a discomforting thought, but the volume of shit is
actually much greater if we remember that the millions of people who
live in certain Andean cities in Ecuador, including Latacunga, Ambato,
Riobamba, Cuenca, and Loja, also dump their waste into Amazonian rivers.
Unfortunately, as you say, this situation is all too common in the
world, where 90% of wastewater goes into the environment without proper
treatment.
Even in countries like the United States, where things are presumably
all under control, there are thousands of “sanitary accidents” every
year, in which untreated sewage goes straight into the environment.
There are also numerous pharmaceuticals that cannot be removed from
the water via conventional methods, such as antibiotics,
antidepressives, and artificial hormones from birth control pills.
In addition, the current system of trying to kill the germs in the
water with chemicals in one city, and the next downstream, and the next
downstream, is a recipe for these germs to get resistant to these
chemicals, especially if at the same time people are drinking and
bathing in other peoples antibiotics. This has generated multiresistant strains of microbes that we cannot kill with chemicals to heal the people who get sick with them , nor can we be sure to disinfect a swimming pool even by adding chlorine.
In terms of health, the worst thing about flooding is that everyone is in everyone else’s shit.
This is an even bigger problem on the coast of Ecuador, where huge
areas get flooded, with millions of people being affected, and it is
getting worse with Global Climate Disruption. Urine-diverting Dry
Toilets (UDDTs), on the other hand, can simply be built above the
highest level of the flood waters.
One of the scariest results of all this fecal contamination, aside
from diarrhea, typhoid, cholera, poliomyelitis, hepatitis, and other
microbial diseases, is the high incidence of roundworms of the genus Ascaris,
which infect about one-seventh of the world human population . There is
a reason that the word for disgust in Spanish, “asco”, is so similar:
These can be almost as thick as a pencil and up to 40 cm long.
When babies are deparasitized, their diapers sometimes look like plates of noodles.
Adult female roundworms produce 200,000 eggs per day and these can be viable in shaded, moist soil for years.
The eggs do not just get swallowed and develop into adults in the
intestines. Instead, they have intermediate stages that navigate in the
host’s bloodstream, throughout the body. Eventually, they come out into
the alveoli of the lungs, get coughed up and swallowed, and only then
become adults.
Roundworm infection is a big factor in many children doing poorly in
school, since the worms consume so much of their food that little is
left for the kids’ brains.
In Part 2 of this article Chris Canaday will tell us about the solution to human waste disposal and how it will solve much of the planets sustainability problems.
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The Shitty State of Human Sanitation (Part 2: The Solution, originally published in 2013 at www.chekhovskalashnikov.com/human-waste-disposal/)
In
Part 2 of this interview about human waste disposal and water
sanitation Chris tells us the solution to all of the problems mentioned
in Part 1: The Problem.
How did the new design for a sustainable human waste disposal system come into being?
In the 1950s, before the regrettable Vietnam War, a team of
Vietnamese doctors analyzed why so many people were sick and how to
control this. They found a great number of people were collecting “night
soil” in buckets that were emptied in the morning directly in
agricultural fields, where people worked largely barefoot.
The doctors realized that 90% of the fertilizer is in the urine
that transmits no disease when dispersed in the soil, while essentially
all the health risk is packaged with only 10% of the fertilizer in the
feces. The answer was to keep the urine separate and set it free on the
soil immediately, while jailing up the shit, until it is not shit any
more.
In their case, they applied a detention time of three months, plus they
added wood ash. This team that invented Urine-diverting Dry Toilets
(UDDTs) was apparently anonymous, although it would be good for credit to go where credit is due, and to know more about the process.
UDDTs were later picked up by the Stockholm Environment Institute in
Sweden, as a solution for the abundant cabins out in the Swedish woods,
where running water is not feasible in the winter due to freezing, but
they would never accept that their many beautiful lakes get
contaminated.
They also actively promote these as a means to improve the health and sanitation of billions of people in the world.
I also suspect that certain ancient cultures had UDDTs, in particular
the densely populated Amazonian peoples that made Terra Preta do Indio
(Indian’s Black Soil, in Portuguese), until they were apparently
decimated by Old World diseases soon after the arrival of Europeans.
Can you explain how the design for this human waste disposal system works?
It is very simple and seeks to follow the natural order of things.
The urine and feces that the body excretes separately are kept separate,
to be dealt with separately, since they are totally different things.
The urine is caught in a funnel toward the front, since both men and
women pee forward, and it goes back to the soil and the plants, where it
transmits no diseases. (A bit of the urine from women may drip farther
back, but this small amount is not a problem.)
Urine is normally sterile and there are only a handful of weird
diseases that it ever transmits, plus for that to happen it has to go
into rivers or contact the next person directly. The various microbes of
urinary tract infections and vaginal infections either get destroyed
rapidly in the soil or are natural inhabitants of the soil anyway. Many
of these come from the gut, but here they are in much smaller numbers
and are highly diluted, as compared to in the feces.
In addition, sexually transmitted diseases cannot live outside of the body any significant amount of time.
Feces drop farther back, directly into alternately used chambers or
exchangeable receptacles and are covered immediately with dry cover
material, such as soil, wood ash, sawdust, rice hulls, or a mix of
these. They are then stored, protected from the rain, for at least six
months in tropical countries or a year in temperate countries, so that
all the disease organisms die and it all just becomes soil.
In fact, all the worst diseases, like cholera, diarrhea and typhoid, are wiped out in a much shorter time
and the guideline of six months or a year is so that intestinal worm
eggs, which are the most resistant pathogens but are much less
life-threatening, are also eliminated. Most victims of these worms do
not even know that they have them.
Shit is a temporary condition. After its jail sentence, it’s no
longer shit: we open the chambers or receptacles and find dark,
humus-rich soil, with no smell or health risk. This
stands to reason, since our pathogens are adapted to living in water
without oxygen inside our guts, not in a pile of dry material,
especially if there is soil in the pile, with all of its bacteria,
fungus, protozoans and invertebrates.
These soil organisms are entirely at home in such a pile, where they
eat and rip up anything that is over-abundant or out of place.
After this jail sentence, we can also apply secondary treatments
involving heat, sun, earthworms or composting together with food scraps (especially thermophilic composting), for extra peace of mind or to speed things up.
We can build UDDTs for sitting or for squatting. In addition to all
the health benefits mentioned above for squatting, this also allows for
better separation of the urine and easier, less expensive construction.
Modern Western People tend to suffer from a psychological disease
called fecophobia, which is an irrational fear of feces. Shit is a
normal part of life and there is no disease in it that the user did not
have from before, so, if the person is healthy, there is no health risk
in his or her shit, only an unpleasant smell to be controlled and
nutrients to be taken advantage of. If the user is sick, their pathogens
get destroyed in the UDDT, as long as it is being managed properly. There
can be a health risk if, in a multi-family system, some of the users
are sick and they are not using their UDDTs properly, such that some of
their feces get mixed into the urine, but this can be controlled by
storing the urine for a number of months (depending on the climate) or
distributing it below the surface of the soil, where no one will have
contact with it. The greatest health risk occurs when we do not think
rationally about this and do the irrational act of throwing it in the
river, where others can have contact immediately.
UDDTs are literally a matter of loving and trusting Mother Earth, in
which we respectfully give back that which we no longer need, to let her
deal with it. If we turn back the clock on shit, we find delicious food
on the table. If we turn back the clock again (twice in the case of
meat), we find beautiful plants growing in the sunlight. One more click
and we see rich soil, so what is to keep it from becoming soil again, if
we turn the dial forward again?
(Some commercial models do not use cover material, but rather have
electric fans to make sure the air is always going away from the user.
One of these is the Ecodomeo, which has a pedal-operated conveyor belt that carries the shit away)
The design has changed very little since the 1950’s. Have you
made any modifications to make it better suit the Ecuadorian Andes and
Amazon?
My line of work has been aimed at making UDDTs as easy and
inexpensive to build as possible, while keeping user acceptance high.
In other words, my goal is for the building of a good dry toilet
to be more a matter of a paradigm shift than a big capital investment.
For this reason, I have found ways to build with readily available
materials, especially since factory-made units are mostly not available
in Ecuador.
One of the biggest changes I made from the start was to distribute
the urine immediately via perforated hoses in the soil, instead of
storing the urine in jugs, to later dilute and apply it as fertilizer
among crop plants.
Organic farmers looking for every bit of natural fertilizer for their
plants might be willing to do the latter, but the average user will not
want to deal with smelly, fermenting urine every few days. In most of
my designs, these hoses are buried 10 cm below the surface of the soil,
among productive plants, like fruit trees, that can put the nutrients to
good use.
In the interest of making UDDTs accessible to everyone, I published a paper in the Austrian online magazine, Sustainable Sanitation Practice,
on Simple UDDTs that may be built with recycled and other readily
available materials, such as disposable plastic bottles and wood: Some of the models shown here cost close to nothing.
Another surprising innovation is the storage of feces in the
ubiquitous, woven, polypropylene plastic sacks used to sell rice, flour
and many other products. These make excellent receptacles for this use,
since humidity can evaporate out and oxygen can filter in, but flies,
smells and pathogens cannot get in or out.
At first glance, people would imagine liquids oozing out, but they
never do, thanks to the dry and absorbent cover material. Also, these
sacks last for years and years, if they are not exposed to the sun’s UV
rays. One of the biggest advantages of using interchangeable containers,
like sacks, is that, at the first sign of any problems with smell or
flies, you can simply change the container and the problem is resolved
immediately. Another is that the feces get covered better in a small
container, as compared to a big chamber.
One of the most practical ways to use these sacks is to place them as
liners of plastic bins, so the sacks are held open nicely and it is
easy to change them. It is also good to make holes in the bottom of the
bin, and have it propped up off the ground, to allow humidity to
evaporate out and for oxygen to get in, since all the worst smells
associated with latrines and sewer lines are generated by bacteria that
live in the absence of oxygen.
Even more surprising for many, I have found that the finished compost
from this system is the best material to cover new shit. Many of the
right soil microbes are still there, likely in an inactive state (like
fungal spores and bacterial endospores), ready to jump back into action
when there is more shit (with its moisture) to have a party in.
In this way, natural selection and the rapid evolution of microbes
are working in our favor, helping them get more efficient at breaking
down exactly our shit, in exactly the conditions we keep them in. In
contrast, the system of water-based toilets and trying to kill the germs
in a short time with chemicals is a recipe for evolution to produce
microbes that are more and more resistant to the chemicals used and that
are potentially more and more virulent in disease
This recycling of cover material makes the operation of UDDTs much
more practical and inexpensive, especially in cities and isolated
locations, since new cover material does not need to be acquired and
transported constantly, nor does much of the finished compost need to
trucked away. That which does have to go would not have to go very far,
if neighbors, nearby neighborhoods or nearby cities sign up for UDDTs or if urban agriculture is being done.
Another good reason to use the finished compost as cover material is
that it filters odors much more efficiently than most other materials,
removing and breaking down up to 99% of volatile organic compounds.
It has also been shown to eliminate 75% of the reduced sulfur compound emissions that most contribute to the characteristic aroma of shit in a laboratory study of conditions similar to those of commercial composting operations (Büyüksönmez et al. 2012, ), and up to 97% of the stench from landfills (Hurst et al. 2005)
There have been a couple of isolated cases of dogs or rats being
attracted by the odor and messing with the sack that is receiving the
feces, but only when sawdust was being used a cover material, not when
finished compost was being used (and this is another reason for the
plastic bin mentioned above).
Hygiene Hypothesis of Disease
Furthermore, there is research showing that children who grow up in
overly clean and disinfected homes, without contact with soil, have a
much higher incidence of asthma and allergies, since their immune
systems do not have anything to train on.
So, having soil-like decomposed feces in the bathroom as cover material
may well be a health benefit, instead of a health risk like one might
suspect, as long as we are certain that the actual pathogens have died
during its storage or treatment.
Humans evolved in complete ecosystems, including all the normal
microbes, not in sterilized boxes, so it would make sense that bringing
more parts of the ecosystem into the city would make it healthier for
people.
This is all the more reason to build green, living roofs and vertical
gardens on urban apartment buildings (and I have figured out how to do
this with disposable Coke bottles).
At the moment, you are working with Achuar communities to
implement this system. Has it been difficult to explain the
environmental and health benefits of this system? What are some of the
problems and breakthroughs you have had?
Changing anyone’s toilet habits is an imminently cultural endeavor
and it is usually an uphill battle. People need to understand the
concept, but, almost more importantly, they need to see and smell that
UDDTs work.
I have built UDDTs with a variety of ethnic groups here in Ecuador,
including mestizos, Kichwa, Shuar, Achuar, Waorani, and a little bit
among the Secoyas. Of these, the Achuar have, so far, shown the greatest
degree of acceptance. They are culturally very hygienic and
traditionally live in houses scattered widely out in the forest, so they
always had lots of forest to hygienically deposit their feces into.
They covered them with soil and leaves, where the ecosystem absorbs
them, without anyone else having contact with them.
The Achuar have only had permanent contact with white people
starting in about 1970, when schools and landing strips began to be
built and they started settling fairly densely around these.
It is also worth remembering that all the worst diseases were brought
by the Europeans and it is estimated that 90% of the indigenous people
in America died of those diseases when Europeans first came to America.
I think that potentially the Achuar have been quite concerned
about fecal contamination for the last several decades, since they
started living together in villages. Each family could be fairly certain
of its own health and not so certain of that of the others, but all the
children come together daily at the school and do their business behind
the same trees. Also, it is a matter of privacy, since some of the
villages are pretty large, with the houses fairly close to one another.
When I explain UDDTs to them, I emphasize the fact that, with open
defecation in the woods, all these microbial enemies are set free, ready
to attack us at any moment, whereas, with a dry toilet, these enemies
are jailed up until they all die. They usually get the idea very
quickly, but it is still a process to get them to build and use them,
since old habits die slowly in any group of people.
In the last year and a half, we have built 31 UDDTs in 15 Achuar
villages with the ACRA Foundation (of Italy) and the Chankuap Foundation
(of Macas, Ecuador), with support from the European Union and the Municipality of Taisha
Over several years, the Pachamama Foundation and I have built over 21 UDDTs in the Achuar villages of Pumpuentsa and Kurintsa, with a high degree of acceptance More
are being built all the time and volunteers are welcome to help with
this. As I write this, the Achuar village of Juyukamentsa is organizing
to build UDDTs for each of 16 families and I would like to find a
volunteer to help them, especially to contribute to good replication of
the design, wood preservation, and education about their proper use and
maintenance.
So if the Amazonian Achuar tribe can be convinced, could
your average Australian, European, or North American can be convinced as
well? Can you envision a time when the whole of humanity uses this
system or are our heads too far stuck up our collective asses to change
our behavior for the better?
At first glance, this may seem like a system that is only applicable
for hippies, organic farmers, and Indians out in the woods, but, in
reality, it is a prime alternative for everyone who wants to be
civilized with their neighbors, future generations, and Nature. It is
also fully feasible in cities, especially if the relatively small amount
of shit is stored on-site during its jail sentence and is then recycled
as cover material, while the urine and excess soil is used locally in
urban agriculture. (Remember the vertical gardens I mentioned?)
We can also greatly shorten the jail sentence by storing the shit in
solar ovens, potentially down to less than a day of good sun, since all
we need to kill fecal pathogens is 7 minutes at 70°C, 30 minutes at
65°C, 2 hours at 60°C, 15 hours at 55°C, or 3 days at 50°C. (Feacham et al. 1983 and Strauch 1991, 1998, cited by Richard Higgins)
This is also more practical than cooking lunch in a solar oven, since untimely clouds do not make us put up with hunger.
The trick is to make these toilets as easy-to-use and presentable as
possible. We currently ask users to add a cup of cover material after
each use, but they do not always remember to do so and they often do not
aim very well, spilling it into the urine funnel and around the toilet.
For this reason, mechanisms are being worked out to add the cover
material mechanically, such as in one project (that I was marginally
involved in) that works via a pedal:
I even have a design in mind in which the user will not have to
remember to step on a pedal, nor would it involve electronic sensors. Another
factor is that many users will not want to deal with the shit and the
piss. This can be resolved by setting up service-provider companies that
come to homes and offices to change the containers, hygienically
process the contents, and (optimally) put the resulting fertilizers back
to work in their own agriculture.
With these companies applying the final products in agriculture
themselves, this would increase the reliability that everything gets its
proper treatment, while converting it back to delicious fruits and
vegetables, which will be infinitely easier to market than the pee and
the poop.
This nutrient recycling is logical and necessary if we want to have
sustainable agriculture and food security. An adult eats a lot of food,
but is not growing, so all the nutrients eventually come back out and,
if we give them back to our crop plants, they have exactly what they
need to make our food again (together with solar energy).
In this way, we can forget about chemical fertilizers, if we also
have a stable population size. Of course, we have to eventually forget
about chemical fertilizers, because they come from non-renewable
sources.
It is even estimated that half of the protein found in present-day
human beings was made with nitrogen originally fixed by this artificial
process, thus being one more case of fossil fuels subsidizing economic
and population growth.
UDDTs are an important tool for combating Global Climate Disruption
more CO2 absorbed by fertilizing plants and trees,more carbon
sequestered into the soil by integrating organic matter,less methane
emitted by avoiding anaerobic fermentation of feces in water,less need
for chemical fertilizers (another big source of GHGs),less use of
petroleum for pumping and treating water,less need for cement for
building big sewers (since cement production is a big source of CO2.
Improved water-holding capacity of soils, in the face of droughts,
easy construction above the high water line (or on a floating
structure), in the face of floods,less demand for precious clean water.
Many rule out the mainstreaming of these dry toilets, as they cannot imagine the masses changing their toilet habits.
This sort of toilet is not for everyone, but it is for everyone who
wants to build a sustainable future for their children and those who do
not learn to recycle nutrients will eventually go the way of the
dinosaurs.
The Chinese have been recycling nutrients into the soil for thousands
of years and this is one of the reasons they have had a continuous,
advanced culture for such a long time. Recycling animal and human dung
is the key to sustainable farming
Durante la ayuda humanitaria en la zona del terremoto en Manabí (Ecuador), con Proyecto Amor 7.8, desarrollamos un Inodoro Ecológico Seco con Separación de la Orina
que es portátil y solo requiere un palet de transporte, un poco de lona
publicitaria, unas botellas plásticas y unos saquillos. Puede estar en
la misma carpa de los damnificados y lo pueden llevar con ellos cuando
van a sus casas permanentes. Luego de reunirla en un urinario hecho de 2 botellas, se dispersa la orina en el suelo, como
fertilizante seguro y efectivo, mientras los sacos
de heces son guardados protegidos contra el sol y la lluvia durante al
menos 6 meses, o enterrados al menos un año (ya que estamos en el
Trópico, doble el tiempo en EE.UU, Europa, Argentina y Chile).
Con cada uso, se bota una taza de tierra encima de las heces.
El urinario sale para arriba, el tacho con el saco de heces sale del costado.
Este modelo es sumamente práctico, económico y fácil de construir.
In the humanitarian relief in earthquake zone of Manabí, Ecuador, with Proyecto Amor
7.8, we developed a portable Urine-diverting Dry Toilet that only
requires an old transport pallet, some billboard cloth, some plastic
bottles and some plastic gunny sacks. It can be used in victims' tents
and they can take it with them when they move back into their permanent
homes. After collection in a portable urinal made from 2 plastic bottles, the urine is dispersed on the soil as a safe and effective
fertilizer, while the sacks of feces are stored protected from the sun
and rain for at least 6 months, or buried in the ground for at least a
year (as we are in the Tropics, double in the Temperate Zone).
After each use, the feces are covered with a cup of soil.
The urinal comes out upward and the bin that holds the sack of feces comes out the side.
This model is very practical, inexpensive and easy to build. (Sort of a DIY version of MoSan.)
Cada vez más, estamos dándonos cuenta que el clima del mundo está dañándose. No llueve ni cuándo, ni dónde, ni cómo debería ... y es todo debido a lo que la especie humana ha hecho, quemando petróleo, quemando bosques, pastando vacas y defecando en el agua.
Puede que no se haya pensado en el último punto, pero es mayor de lo que tal vez piensa.
Los Inodoros Ecológicos Secos con Separación de la Orina (www.ecosanres.org, www.susana.org) tienen mucho que ofrecer:
Si mezclamos todo en el agua, se fermenta en la ausencia de oxígeno y produce grandes cantidades de Metano (Gas del Efecto Invernadero #2).
La orina va tan directamente como sea posible al suelo como fertilizante, así manteniendo las heces más secas y también se las cubre con un material seco y absorbente, como tierra o cenizas de leña. Algo de CO2 es emitido al descomponerse, pero las plantas fertilizadas absorbirán más.
El consumo de agua de reduce enormemente y ésta tiene casi siempre petróleo o electricidad invertidad en su bombeo y tratamiento.
Se reduce la necesidad de fertilizantes químicos, los cuales son responsables por la emisión de Óxido Nitroso (Gas del Efecto Invernadero #3) en su producción y aplicación. (Y, por supuesto, tenemos que comenzar a olvidarnos de los fertilizantes químicos, ya que son recursos no renovables.)
Secuestramos carbono al suelo, mejorando su capacidad de sostener el agua.
Menos cemento tendría que invertirse en la construcción de los alcantarrillados.
Es claro que la escasés de agua se intensificará con la Alteración Mundial del Clima y la transmisión de enfermedades se volverá menos predecible
(https://class.coursera.org/warmerworld-001/lecture/41). Entonces, es más razón de resolver nuestros problemas productivamente nosotros mismos, en lugar de botarlos en la atmósfera global.
Hay más información en las otras entradas en este blog.
The Dry Toilet as a Weapon to Fight Global Climate Disruption
We are all becoming more and more aware that our world's climate is getting messed up. It is not raining when, where and how it should ... and it is all due to what the human species has done, burning petroleum, burning forests, grazing cattle, and defecating in the water.
You may not have known about that last one, but it is a bigger factor than you may think. Urine-diverting Dry Toilets (www.ecosanres.org, www.susana.org) have much to offer:
If we mix everything in water, it ferments in the absence of oxygen and produces large amounts of Methane (Greenhouse Gas #2).
The urine goes as straight as possible to the soil as fertilizer, thus keeping the feces drier and these also get covered in an absorbant dry material, like soil or wood ash. Some CO2 is produced as they decompose, but the plants that are fertilized absorb more CO2.
Water consumption is greatly reduced and this almost always has petroleum or electricity invested in its pumping and treatment.
The need for chemical fertilizers is greatly reduced, and these are responsable for emitting Nitrous Oxide (Greenhouse Gas #3) in their production and use. (And, of course, we have to start forgetting about chemical fertilizers, as they are all non-renewable resources.)
We sequester carbon into the soil, improving its water-holding capacity.
Less cement would be needed to build to build sewers.
It is clear that water scarcity will intensify with Global Climate Disruption and the spread of disease will become more unpredictable (https://class.coursera.org/warmerworld-001/lecture/41). So this is all the more reason to resolve our own problems productively on our own, instead of dumping them into the global atmosphere.
There is more info on this in other posts on this blog.
Un Inodoro
Ecológico Seco con Separación de la Orina (UDDT) que los
Desamparados, Pobres o Damnificados de Desastres Pueden Hacer Ellos
Mismos.
por Chris Canaday
(Esto fue publicado
amablemente en inglés por una organización en Estados Unidos, cuyo
nombre se traduce como “La Higiene Pública Nos Permite Seguir
Siendo Humanos”, en este nexo:
Cambiar
de los inodoros caros y contaminantes en base a agua a los inodoros
secos descentralizados y amigables con el ambiente debería ser más
cuestión de otra manera de pensar que una gran inversión económica.
Esto en especial es el caso para los que tienen poco dinero, tal vez
viven en la calle o están lidiando con algún desastre.
Las funciones
claves que un UDDT (por
las siglas en inglés de Urine-diverting Dry Toilet) debería cumplir
son: (1) encarcelar
a las heces
el tiempo necesario para que mueran todas las enfermedades que puedan
contener (como diarrea, cólera, tifoidea y huevos de lombrices
intestinales) y (2) liberar
a la orina
en el suelo, donde es un excelente fertilizante para las plantas y no
transmite ninguna enfermedad. Esta separación también reduce
muchísimo la emisión de malos olores y mantiene el volumen de
material peligroso pequeño y manejable.
El siguiente inodoro
minimalista es totalmente funcional y se le hace con unos pocos
materiales rescatados de la basura:
Dos botellas
plásticas de 4 litros, como las de la venta de cloro.
50 centímetros de
cinta adhesiva.
2 metros de piola o
algo similar.
Cuatro palos de 25
centímetros (o una caja del tamaño correcto).
Unos sacos
normales, tejidos de polipropileno, como los que se usan para vender
100 libras de harina, arroz o lo que sea. Los sacos biodegradables
de yute (como usan para la exportación de café) también valen y
tienen una ventaja (vea #7, a continuación).
Una pequeña lamina
de plástico.
Instrucciones
(1) Haga
un urinario ecológico portátil de las dos botellas,
cortando una en forma diagonal (como se ve en la foto) y uniéndolas
boca a boca con la cinta y luego la piola. Esto es muy útil, aún si
se tiene un inodoro más elegante, pero no exactamente donde uno
duerme, ya que sirve para orinar en el mismo dormitorio, sin tener
que salir entre las culebras, insectos, violadores y otras criaturas.
También puede usarse en el día donde sea que haya la privacidad del
caso.
Estando parado, este
urinario emite muy poco olor, ya que las bocas de las botellas son
pequeñas y la botella superior impide el movimiento de aire por
encima de estas bocas. Cada día, se le enjuaga con agua para
prevenir el olor de la fermentación de la orina.
Este urinario es muy
práctico para colectar la orina, diluirla con por lo menos tres
veces más agua (puede ser agua gris del lavado de platos, etc.), y
regar este excelente fertilizante en el suelo entre los cultivos de
uno… o entre las plantas ornamentales de un parque urbano para
ayudarlas a florecer más hermosamente. También se podría botar la
orina por un desagüe, pero eso sería un desperdicio de los
nutrientes, aumentaría el gasto público en el tratamiento de las
aguas servidas (si es que hay tal tratamiento), y contribuiría a la
formación de zonas muertas, sin oxígeno, en los ríos y mares.
(2) Meta
a los cuatro palos en la tierra,
a la altura de unos 12 centímetros. Si se prefiere (o en especial si
el piso es duro y no se podría meter los palos), se puede usar una
caja de cartón, madera o plástico, del tamaño correcto, en lugar
de los palos.
(3) Enrolle
el filo del saco y colóquelo encima de los palos.
Ponga una taza de tierra donde el primer depósito caerá. Si se
quiere, se puede poner una capa de hojas secas primero.
(4) Ponga
los talones contra el saco, haga cuclillas, sostenga el urinario
delante de uno y suelte su carga de nutrientes.
Las heces caerán ordenadamente en el saco, mientras la orina fluirá
ordenadamente al urinario. Pare el urinario hasta la siguiente
oportunidad de vaciarlo en el suelo. Ponga el papel, las hojas, las
tuzas de maíz, o lo que sea que haya usado para limpiarse, junto con
las heces. (Se puede organizar para la privacidad como guste y como
pueda, posiblemente con hojas de palmera metidas en el suelo o con
una cortina en un rincón del cuarto.)
(5) Ponga
una taza de tierra seca encima
de las heces para cubrirlas, controlar el olor, evitar la puesta de
huevos por parte de las moscas, e inocularlas con los microbios
benéficos que descomponen estos tipos de cosas. Mantenga un palo en
el saco para acomodar las heces y el papel, facilitar su cubertura
con la tierra, y para ir llenando el espacio ordenadamente (siempre
agarrando el extremo limpio del palo). Una de las mejores tierras
para esto consiste en las heces descompuestas de un ciclo anterior,
como se ve en la foto, con una mezcla de aserrín o cáscara de arroz
en caso que esté demasiado compacto.
(6)
Cuando no esté en uso, cúbralo
todo con un plástico (o
un tacho) para mantener afuera la lluvia, las moscas y los ojos
curiosos.
(7) Cuando
esté lleno (a
una altura de casi los 12 cm), o cuando los usuarios se van, amárrele
el saco
con una etiqueta que dice algo como, “HUMANAZA. Abra este paquete
de rico abono orgánico únicamente después de XX/X/20XX, cuando no
representará ningún peligro y se le puede usar en la agricultura”
y escóndalo en un lugar protegido contra la lluvia y el sol, como
debajo de un puente. Otra opción es enterrarlo, preferiblemente en
un suelo seco (tal vez debajo de ese mismo puente). También se podría amontonar los sacos sobre una capa de piedras o palos y cubrirlo con un plástico para que no se mojen en la lluvia (posiblemente debajo de un árbol para proteger el plástico del sol).
Las heces deben
secarse y descomponerse durante por lo menos 6 meses en países
tropicales o un año en países templados (más tiempo en caso de
enterrarlo en el suelo), para que mueran los microbios de las
enfermedades humanas y que ya no estén peligrosas (y que ya no sean
heces, sino tierra).
Si los usuarios
están allí suficiente tiempo, o regresan, ellos mismos podrán usar
esta nueva tierra en la agricultura, o reciclarla como material
secante en el inodoro de nuevo. Las personas más quisquillosas
preferirán meterla en el fondo de unos huecos para sembrar árboles,
lo cual también es un excelente uso para esta tierra.
La ventaja de usar
sacos biodegradables de yute es que podemos botarlos frescos en
huecos en la tierra, sembrar árboles encima, y olvidarlos (hasta
preguntarnos por qué los árboles crecen tan rápidamente y con
frutos tan ricos).
Preguntas y
Respuestas
Pueden surgir las
siguientes preguntas, mayormente debido a la fecofobia (el miedo
irracional a las heces):
¿No podrían
salir los gérmenes por la tela tejida del saco?
Aparte de las larvas
de Uncinarias y Strongyloides,
los patógenos fecales no se trasladan a ninguna parte, sino
simplemente esperan pasivamente a ser lavados hasta el agua que otra
persona va tomar, arrastrados hasta las manos de alguien que no las
lavan antes de comer, o llevados por moscas hasta la comida de
alguien. Estos son los riesgos de la defecación al aire libre, con
los patógenos fecales liberados en el ambiente. Los líquidos no
fluyen hacia fuera de los sacos de este sistema, debido al material
secante que agregamos con cada uso, la separación de la orina y la
protección contra la lluvia. De hecho, la permeabilidad de estos
sacos tejidos es una ventaja, ya que esto permite la evaporación de
la humedad y el ingreso del oxígeno (sin que entren o salgan olores
o moscas), entonces las heces pueden descomponerse normalmente, con
los patógenos muriéndose en una tasa exponencial. Vea un ejemplo de
la descomposición de las heces en estos sacos en estevideo.
Como muestra este gráfico del
libro Manual
del Humabono por
Joseph Jenkins, las bacterias coliformes fecales mueren en el suelo
en una tasa exponencial. El Eje X es el número de días y el Eje Y
es el porcentaje de supervivencia de los patógenos. “99% de las
bacterias coliformes fecales en los suelos mueren en aproximadamente
15 días en el verano y en aproximadamente 21 días en el invierno.”
Regresando al tema
de las larvas de Uncinarias y Strongyloides,
ellas viajan únicamente a través de suelos húmedos arenosos o
francos (no arcillosos), entonces se puede colocar unos palos o
piedras debajo de los sacos cuando se los guarda y se puede botar un
poco de ceniza de leña (que es alcalino) sobre, alrededor y debajo
de los sacos. Además, las Uncinarias casi nunca matan a las personas
y no son tan comunes, con “solo” hasta unos 740
millones de personas infectadas
en el mundo, principalmente en África y el sudeste de Asia. Es
relativamente fácil averiguar si las personas están infectadas y
para eliminarlas con químicos o con alternativas naturales, como las
semillas de papaya. Debemos siempre recordar que las larvas de
Uncinarias solo pueden estar en las heces si los usuarios están
infectados. Los patógenos no pueden salir de la nada y, en el caso
de las Uncinarias, el mayor factor es la defecación al aire por
parte de los perros y el ingreso de las larvas en los pies de las
personas. (Si no conocen cómo son las Uncinarias, les invito a ver
este video en el AnimalPlanet.
No se alimentan de la comida de sus víctimas, sino de su sangre y
fueron la inspiración para la creatura en la película Alien.)
Asimismo, las larvas de Stongyloides
solo viajan en suelo húmedo y más afectan a las personas con bajas
defensas, como los pacientes de SIDA.
¿Podemos estar
absolutamente seguros que todos los patógenos morirán y ninguna
enfermedad se transmitirá a nadie?
No. Alguien podría
venir y abrir el saco antes de hora, sin leer la etiqueta, pero
cualquier sistema puede fallar cuando no esté aplicado bien. Lo que
sí podemos asegurar es que todos los patógenos fecales están
vivitos y coleando en las heces frescas que irían de otra manera
directamente al ambiente. También sabemos que estos patógenos
mueren en una rápida tasa exponencial al descomponerse las heces en
presencia de oxígeno. Lo importante es encarcelar a estos asquerosos
mientras esto ocurre y cada día de cárcel es una victoria en la
guerra contra las enfermedades. Efectivamente todos estos patógenos
son anaeróbicos, es decir están adaptados para vivir en la ausencia
de oxígeno, lo que hacen en el hábitat acuático dentro de nuestras
tripas, y solo pueden aguantar un cierto tiempo en un lugar seco y
oxigenado antes de infectar a otra persona. Por eso, los patógenos
fecales más persistentes han evolucionado envolturas resistentes a
la deshidratación, como el quiste de las amebas y el cascarón del
huevo de la lombriz de Ascaris,
pero aún éstos les pueden proteger solamente un cierto tiempo.
Un importante factor
es la naturaleza implacable e incansable de los microbios de los
suelos orgánicos, comiendo todo lo que no les come primero. La
mayoría de los microbios patógenos serían presa fácil para los
organismos del suelo y se ha demostrado que las bacterias fecales
mueren más rápidamente en suelos
con mayor diversidad de especies,
como recomiendo usar aquí, óptimamente reciclando el material
secante, después de un tiempo prudencial o un procesamiento
adecuado, con algunos de exactamente los mismos microbios que
descompusieron las heces, las enfermedades y los parásitos en el
ciclo anterior, y que no son patógenos humanos.
Schönning
and Stenström (2004)
recomiendan guardar las heces, con bastante ceniza de leña o cal,
durante más de dos años en los países templados (es decir, El
Norte, Argentina y otros) o un año en el Trópico. Personalmente,
pienso que esto es más precaución que lo necesario, especialmente
en el calor y la biodiversidad de gran parte del Trópico, pero estos
tiempos de detención pueden aplicarse fácilmente, si hay suficiente
espacio y si esto le hace sentir mejor a la gente. Estos tiempos se
refieren al patógeno fecal más persistente: el huevo de la lombriz
intestinal nematodo Ascaris
lumbricoides,
y todos los microbios realmente peligrosos (cólera, diarrea, etc.)
son eliminados en menos de tres
meses.
Hemos buscado los huevos de Ascaris
en nuestras heces descompuestas, aquí en la Amazonía Ecuatoriana, y
hasta ahora no los hemos encontrado más allá de los cuatro meses de
descomposición. Hace falta realizar más pruebas y determinar un
protocolo más sencillo y definitivo, y básicamente solo requiere un
microscopio. (Y, hasta ahora, yo mismo guardo las heces durante más
que un año, para mayor tranquilidad de los usuarios.)
Nadie quiere
recomendar un tiempo de detención que podría tal vez llegar a
enfermar a alguien, y esto es especialmente el caso con
organizaciones gubernamentales e internacionales. Sin embargo, estoy
dispuesto a arriesgarme, ya que la peor alternativa es continuar con
los masivos casos de defecación al aire libre, aguas servidas que
van directamente a los ríos y bahías, y los 2,6 mil millones de
personas en el mundo que no cuentan con ningún tipo de inodoro
decente. Además, con el tiempo, si nos damos cuenta que se debería
modificar estos tiempos de detención (aumentando o reduciéndolos),
lo podemos hacer.
¿No se supone
que debemos guardar la orina durante algunos meses para sanearla
antes de aplicarla en el suelo?
Esta preocupación
se fundamenta en la posibilidad que haya contaminación fecal en la
orina, debido a mal uso de los inodoros… y esto es muy poco
probable con este modelo tan sencillo de UDDT, en el cual el usuario
sostiene el urinario exactamente donde tiene que estar. En caso de
algún accidente, el usuario podría vaciar el urinario en un hueco
en la tierra, en lugar de regarlo en la superficie del suelo. (En
lugares donde hay el parásito de Esquistosomiasis, Schistosoma
haematobium,
en especial en el África subsahariana, la orina debe dispersarse en
el suelo lejos de los ríos y lagunas, para que el parásito no pueda
encontrar los caracoles de agua dulce que necesita infectar para
completar su ciclo de vida.)
¿No vendría
algún animal, como perro o rata, a romper el saco y regar este
material tan peligroso?
La experiencia ha
demostrado que esto no ocurre, en especial si usamos tierra como
material secante y, en particular, la mencionada tierra reciclada. Ha
habido un par de casos de perros traviesos, pero únicamente cuando
se usaba aserrín pura para cubrir las heces. La tierra y el compost
ya terminado son entre los mejores filtros para los olores.
Fuera de la
fecofobia, otras inquietudes pueden surgir:
¿Por qué
debemos proteger a los sacos contra el sol? ¿Los
rayos del sol no ayudarían a matar a los patógenos?
Sí, sería de gran
ayuda en esto, pero la luz ultravioleta también destruye las fibras
plásticas de polipropileno de los sacos. Unos hornos solares que
toman en cuenta esto serían muy convenientes (y podemos tener mucho
más paciencia al hornear las heces por saneamiento que cuando
tratamos de hornear a nuestro almuerzo frente a un hambre
imperativo). Según el siguiente gráfico, solo necesitamos lograr
una temperatura arriba de 65° C durante una hora para matar todos
los patógenos fecales, lo cual es mucho más fácil que los 100° C
requeridos para hervir el agua. Una vez, una estudiante y yo hicimos
un simple horno solar de materiales reciclados y aparentemente
logramos los 80° C, ya que una botella de plástico PET se deformó…
y los huevos de Ascaris
contenidos adentro estuvieron deformados y probablemente muertos
cuando los observamos debajo del microscopio.
Un gráfico indicando el
tiempo necesario (en horas) para que varios patógenos fecales
humanos mueran bajo diferentes temperaturas, tomado de Feachem, R.G.,
Bradley, D.J., Garelick, H. y Mara, D.D. 1983. Sanitation
and Disease – Health aspects of excreta and waste water management.
John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, UK (reproducido en Schönning
and Stenström 2004).
Por
ejemplo, todos los patógenos mueren dentro de una hora a 65° C, o
en un mes a 45° C.
¿Qué pasa si no
somos tan pobres y queremos algo mejor?
Se lo pueden hacer.
Si los suelos son relativamente secos y absorbentes y nunca se
inundan, pongo en consideración el ArborLoo,
que consiste en una casita liviana que se coloca sobre uno y otro
hueco en la tierra (de un metro de profundidad) donde luego se
siembran árboles, como éste que hicimos mayormente con materiales
reciclados.
Acuérdense de agregar una taza de tierra, hojas secas o cenizas
después de cada uso. Si no tienen suficiente espacio para sembrar
tantos árboles, pueden sembrar plantas como el zapallo o el banano y
cavar de nuevo el mismo sitio después de por lo menos dos o tres
años.
También, les invito
a conocer los modelos de inodoros secos que publiqué (in inglés,
pero con fotos) en la revista Sustainable
Sanitation Practice y
varios otros modelos en mi blog,
algunos de los cuales tienen hermosos pisos de cerámicas puestas en
ferrocemento delgado que solo requiere medio saco de cemento.
Además, les sugiero que armen Fuentes a Pedal (en inglés,
TippyTap)
para lavar las manos, optimizando la cantidad de agua y manteniéndola
limpia para las siguientes personas.
¿Cómo podrían
usar este inodoro los miles de millones de personas en el mundo que
limpian el ano con agua?
Se podría hacer
otro Urinario Ecológico (de botellas más anchas y que no se ruedan
estando acostadas) y marcarlo “Agua de Lavado de Ano y de Mano”.
Se le acostaría en el piso para captar estas aguas y el borde
cortado sería lo más alto posible para evitar su salida o
salpicada. Una Fuente a Pedal podría proveer esta agua al pisar un
palo en el suelo, sin tocar este recipiente de agua y mucho menos
contaminar su contenido. Al completar el lavado del ano, se pondría
este Urinario Ecológico de pie (con la otra mano) y se procede a
lavar las manos, preferiblemente con jabón o con ceniza
de leña (lo cual es igual
de efectivo pero no cuesta nada).
(Una Fuente
a Pedal, o TippyTap, consiste en una botella plástica puesta en
un palo horizontal que se vira al pisar otro palo amarrado cerca del
suelo, de tal manera que sale un chorrito de agua de un huequito
hecho con un clavo a rojo vivo. Sirve para el lavado de manos --y en
este caso, de anos—sin desperdiciar el agua y manteniendo la
reserva limpia. Hemos adaptado el modelo en la siguiente foto para
llenarse automáticamente con la lluvia.)
Este poquito de
aguas negras puede disponerse en un hueco en la tierra, similar a un
hueco para sembrar un poste, lleno de piedras (en especial si la
tierra tiende a derrumbarse). Se podría también colocar una tabla
como tapa, para evitar la salida de olor y el ingreso de moscas. Si
hay frecuentes inundaciones o el agua en la tierra está muy alta,
habría que armar algún tipo de humedal de plantas para purificar
estas aguas servidas.
¿Y si queremos
sentarnos…?
También se puede
organizar una banca para eso, como se puede ver en mi blog,
pero recordémonos que la posición de cuclillas es la más natural
para un ser humano que quiere defecar y, por lo tanto:
hay menos
estreñimiento,
hay menos
hemorroides,
es más higiénico
(como los genitales no se topan con nada),
es más accesible
para niños pequeños, y
la evacuación es
más completa.
Además, es más
económico, fácil y portátil construir para cuclillas y logramos
una mejor separación de la orina.
¿Hasta dónde
podría llegar esto?
Al usar este inodoro
minimalista, que uno mismo puede hacer, las personas pueden no solo
resolver este problema sanitario inmediatamente ellas mismas, sino
también mostrar a los gobiernos, fundaciones y otras entidades que
entiendan y acepten el concepto y la práctica de los Inodoros
Ecológicos Secos con Separación de la Orina. Muchos planificadores
y tomadores de decisiones descartarían esta opción como un sueño
utópico que nunca sería factible, pero en realidad los ciudadanos
locales son frecuentemente más prácticos, proactivos y con los pies
más firmemente en la tierra que sus líderes. Una vez demostrado que
la gente pueda manejar a estos sencillos inodoros secos, los
gobiernos y fundaciones tendrán más confianza en construir unidades
elegantes y permanentes para estos mismos usuarios. Se han construido
demasiados inodoros secos que, luego de entregarse a los usuarios con
la esperanza que los utilicen bien, resultan ser abandonados o mal
usados, ya que los usuarios no fueron preparados adecuadamente y no
estaban convencidos de los beneficios del sistema.
De hecho, este
sencillo sanitario podría ser utilizado como prueba para que los
usuarios confirmen su cupo en la lista de elegantes inodoros secos a
construirse. Luego de una semana de uso, se podría evaluar su uso y
así tendrían un poco de presión para realmente entender y usar
estos inodoros secos y realmente usarlos bien, ya que a nadie le
gustaría ser tachado de la lista por ser desordenado o no poder
seguir las instrucciones.
Este diseño puede
considerarse un peldaño bajo pero sólido en la escalera de inodoros
secos que son cada vez más fáciles y aceptables para los usuarios.
Con esto, esos 2,6 mil millones de personas podrían rápidamente
contar con un inodoro, tal vez por medio de un programa de
redistribución creativa de estos “desechos” plásticos, en
especial tomando en cuenta que estos sacos de polipropileno pasan en
la sombra, protegidos contra los rayos dañinos del sol, y se los
podemos usar una y otra vez, año tras año. Este inodoro es
accesible para cualquier persona en el mundo que puede rescatar de la
basura unas ciertas cositas y tiene la clara decisión de mantener el
ambiente más limpio y productivo.
Si
usted tiene preguntas o sugerencias respecto a este sencillo inodoro,
favor escribirme a canaday2 ARROBA gmail PUNTO com. Si aplican este diseño, favor avisarme para saber hasta dónde llega y para ayudarles a afinar cualquier asunto. También les
invito a leer estas entrevistas sobre problemas
con saneamiento con agua e inodoros
ecológicos secos.
(próximamente traducidos al español en
inodoroseco.blogspot.com.)
Invito sus comentarios y sugerencias. También sería un gusto ayudarles a diseñar para nuevas situaciones.
canaday2 ARROBA gmail PUNTO com
I invite your comments and suggestions. It would also be a pleasure to help you design for new situations.
canaday2 AT gmail DOT com
There
can be a health risk if, in a multi-family system, some of the users
are sick and they are not using their UDDTs properly, such that some of
their feces get mixed into the urine, but this can be controlled by
storing the urine for a number of months (depending on the climate) or
distributing it below the surface of the soil, where no one will have
contact with it. The greatest health risk occurs when we do not think
rationally about this and do the irrational act of throwing it in the
river, where others can have contact immediately.
More
are being built all the time and volunteers are welcome to help with
this. As I write this, the Achuar village of Juyukamentsa is organizing
to build UDDTs for each of 16 families and I would like to find a
volunteer to help them, especially to contribute to good replication of
the design, wood preservation, and education about their proper use and
maintenance.
Another
factor is that many users will not want to deal with the shit and the
piss. This can be resolved by setting up service-provider companies that
come to homes and offices to change the containers, hygienically
process the contents, and (optimally) put the resulting fertilizers back
to work in their own agriculture.
Entradas
