http://www.care2.com/greenliving/when-you-flush-dont-flush-our-planet.html
When You Flush, Don’t Flush Our Planet
By Simran Sethi, Intent
What you may not realize, cherie, is that whatever you flush down comes back around. Our waste fertilizes our fields and is pumped back into the waterways that are our major sources of drinking water. Let’s take the journey from toilet to tap, shall we? Oui oui. (We’re affecting French here for a touch of sophistication in a post centering on fecal matter.)
Americans use about 70 gallons of water indoors, every day. About three-quarters of that is used in the toilette–shower, bath, sink, crapper–and over one-quarter is used whisking away our waste. You can cut this water usage by making sure your toilet isn’t leaking, using a composting or low-flow toilet or even displacing the water in the tank with a brick or container filled with sand. Your toilet is not a trashcan, so save cigarette butts, tissues and used condoms for the basket, not the bowl.
We don’t want to bum you out, but cutting water usage means a lot in an era when more than a billion people lack access to safe drinking water. According to Claudia McMurray, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, “On any given day, approximately 50% of the world’s hospital beds are filled with patients suffering from water and sanitation related diseases. Each year 1.8 million children in developing countries die from diarrheal disease–the second leading cause of death after pneumonia.”
When aiming for more equitable water usage, hippie wisdom comes in handy: If it’s brown flush it down; if it’s yellow, let it mellow. S’il vous plait. (Our hippie is French.)
After the solid and liquid waste leave the bowl, they’re routed through your house pipes to what’s called a sanitary sewer. This is where the magic happens. Your precious cargo arrives at the treatment plant and passes through a series of mechanical screens. The solids get sent to a landfill, while the smaller bits get separated into sludge and liquid waste.
During secondary treatment, the sludge is pumped into concrete digesters where oxygen-hungry bacteria chomp on our crap and break organic sewage into simpler inorganic compounds. This concoction is drained, and the dehydrated “bio-solids” are sent to farmers to use as fertilizer on our fields. Unfortunately, these refined poo pellets contain heavy metals, dioxins, PCBs, pesticides and hundreds of other toxic chemicals. They pollute surface water and cause rashes and infections in farmers and livestock. Not surprising, the use of fecal fertilizer is causing shitstorms all over the place. Some green groups maintain that with better safeguards, sludge might be one of the best ways to handle our waste, but until there’s better oversight, you may want to seek out certified organic produce grown without bio-solids.
Back in the sewage treatment plant, the remaining water is disinfected chemically and discharged into a stream, river, lagoon or wetland or used for irrigation on golf courses or highway medians. Despite being chemically treated, that water is still rife with birth-control, anti-depressants and other pharmaceuticals we once ingested and wee-weed out. Sources of drinking water like the Puget Sound and the Potomac River harbor trace amounts of caffeine, heart medication, estrogen and more.
What are we to do? Don’t flush your drugs, for starters. And rejoice in the fact that scientists have now developed a way to turn pee into electricity, sprinkling a few drops onto copper chloride paper and generating about 1.5 volts of energy.
One more suggestion that will lighten the load: Get yourself a bidet (those French!) or use recycled toilet paper. Recycled, mon ami, not reused. The average American uses over 100 rolls a year, most of which is made from a combination of softwood and hardwood trees–Southern pines and Douglas firs make the paper strong, while maples and oaks make the paper soft. Zut alors! Oak trees have been felled to give our asses a little more comfort! And to ease our eyes, the paper is brightened with chlorine bleach which results in dioxin contamination. T.P. made from recycled paper uses colored and white stock (with staples and pins removed, natch) and is usually whitened with hydrogen peroxide.
C’est bon.
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This post was written by Simran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh, and originally published on The Huffington Post. Thanks to the University of Kansas School of Journalism and Lacey Johnston for research assistance.
Intent.com provides content and community for who you aspire to be–personally, socially and globally.
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19 comments
add your comment »Flushing things like slivers and hand soap or cotton balls; I've seen this done, just isn't right. And I heartily agree with the article. Some countries/societies, in earlier times made bleach out of human urine. It "mellows" and the yellow color clears after a time. This and using feces as fertilizer may sound gross, but the latter I know has been done and has worked very effectively.
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Why are we so hooked on using toilet paper? My 5-year-old daughter and I use "family cloths" when we urinate. We made them by cutting up her receiving blankets, and I wash them with the towels. Give it a try, and you'll use MUCH less TP.
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I just can't "let it mellow." Flushing keeps the bowl cleaner. Not flushing makes the house smell like pee. Our family does try to limit our water consumption. I do care about unclean water in developing countries; but honestly, I don't know how my use of water from the lake and treatment plant in my area directly affects people halfway around the globe.
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By the way, the majority of the material is currently either put into land fills or taken out to sea on barges or via pipes and dumped into the oceans. In some areas it is even discharged into fresh water rivers and streams.
In other areas where the waste is applied to fields there are many other problems too, such as polluted run off and it making local creatures including bees very sick.
Some farmers still do it because the sewage agencies in nearby large towns pay them to take it.
It is all often quite risky and just not talked about, and at the very least it is an incredible waste.
Just for reference, as of 2002 when I first research the matter, the US threw away over 7 billion tons of organic wastes which could produce enough energy, if put through a system such as ours, to be worth over 1/2 trillion dollars, at current wholesale natural gas prices in the US.
That would make for one heck of an economic stimulus while removing quite a lot of greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and pollutants from or land and waters.
Handling this material intelligently is not only good business, it is a moral, ethical, social and economic imperative.
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Actually there are several things about this article which are factually incorrect or make assumptions based on small samplings of what is done in a particular area.
The EPA has rules which make it a crime to use human wastes, even processed wastes, on fields used for the growth of food crops intended for humans.
It is also not bad to put tissues in the toilet. They are soft paper and usually contaminated with organic waste and germs. It is the best place to put them.
A brick or open container with sand or rocks and pebbles are bad ideas. The grit from them damages the seal in the toilet and leads to much more water waste. Use a closed plastic soda bottle with the label removed and completely filled. If you want a little more weight in it, put some stones inside it but put the lid on tightly.
Using human wastes as fertilizer has TRADITIONALLY been bad. Often very bad. However, there now exists technology to not only make this safe, but it is a cleaner and more eco friendly way to process sewage and organic material that would otherwise go into a landfill. As a big bonus, it extracts a LOT of energy. Enough to turn a nice profit.
I know all this because it is what I deal with professionally every day. I am the inventor of the ORB organic waste to energy non-food based integrated biofuels system. We are getting ready to go into full scale industrial construction soon.
Feel free to message me with any questions.
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Those who are concerned about finding recycled TP, should look closely at the labels. You might be surprised to find that more brands are recycled than you realize. When I first stumbled across Marcal in a bodega I bought it out of necessity. I needed TP. There were only two brands to choose from. When I brought it home and was looking at the label, I noticed in tiny print it stated it was recycled. They've recently redesigned the packaging to make it obvious that it's a recycled/environmentally-friendly product, but it might pay to look more closely at the TP your stores carry because you might find what you're looking for is simply flying under the radar.
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using our own poop for fertilizer?! how stupid are we??!!!!!
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Good grief! Strategically placed French phrases doesn't diminish the vulgarity found in this article. This is not the way to be taken seriously.
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one liter of water or sand works and fits best, and actually increases the flush force sometimes. as to when to flush, remember: 'yellow is mellow and brown is down'!
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Marcal Quilted Perforated 2-Ply Paper Roll Towels 15 Rolls 100% Recycled/60% Post Consumer Recycled Content $21.28 Shipping Included at Sam's; it is also available at Lowe's. Never thought I could give up my Charmin, but I am impressed with the quality and softness of this recycled toilet paper. I have yet to try their paper towels, tissues, etc.
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