Waste Management

**This page strongly relates to The Home... Check it out, why not? :3**

This wiki page falls into four categories.

* Human biological waste (Poop and pee)
* Inorganic waste (Plastics from packaging mainly)
* Organic waste (Food scraps.)
* Chemical waste. (Paints, solvents, cleaning liquids.)

This page will mainly focus on human biological waste and organic waste where there are potential technical crossovers.

## Human Biological Waste

### Human Shit Calculation

There are many uses for human shit. This is kind of good because we will be producing so much of it! Assuming a population of 20 we would see shit production of around 1600kg per year. This is based on the average poop mass of 0.34kg per person per day. 75% of that mass being water.

Waste disposal on water is a very tricky thing. With large-ish populations waste going into the water can affect the ecosystem and the health of the water dwelling community (it's nice to swim and not eat shit, no?). In warm climates such systems as the Handypod exist, a type of floating septic tank. The composting of black water is also a means of dealing with waste. Whether you use the compost for fertilising or not, the process has still turned the waste into a safe, if not useful material that can be spread in any forest or field.

As well as this it would also be possible to make floating compost toilets using wheely bins or blue barrels but this solution asks questions about rate of composting, rate of shit (how much shit does X number of people make over Y time?) as well as logistical questions about switching barrels and storage.

Here in Copenhagen we have a big problem when it comes to composting toilets due to freezing and capacity. These are technical problems that could be circumvented but they need easily maintainable, effective solutions. A Swedish company called Mullis has a cold climate compost toilet that is very well insulated and also uses a small heater to prevent freezing.

### **Research on temperatures**

So from what I've gathered, if you dig 6m into the ground, the temperature of the ground will be between 10-15 degrees (geothermal heat pump systems are installed on that depth) which is the optimal temperature for the low temperature thermophilic bacterias called psychrophiles. Fancy digging a hole in the ground?

The four phases of composting the manure include:

1) the mesophilic phase: raising the temperature of
the composting mass up to 44C

2) the thermophilic phase: continue up to about 70C although such high temperatures are neither common nor desirable in backyard compost (although desirable if you want to create a heating system based on it, need to look into ways of sustaining that temperature though). This heating stage takes place rather quickly and may last only a few days, weeks, or months (also it needs to be looked into how to prolong it)

3) the cooling phase

4) the curing phase.

### **Research on types of toilets**

Humanure composting toilets and systems can generally be divided into two categories based on the composting temperatures they generate. Some toilet systems produce thermophilic (hot) compost; others produce low-temperature compost. Most commercial and homemade composting toilets are low-temperature composting
toilets, sometimes called “mouldering toilets.” In thermophilic you collect urine and toilet paper, in mouldering its better to avoid it; for more information (especially about pathogens) check this website http://www.roperld.com/science/compostingtoilets/compostingtoilets.htm

PeePoo have sewage bags that contain bacteria that digest the bag's contents faster than they would be digested otherwise.

## Books

For some reason Yuna keeps searching for books on all matters so there we go.

https://humanurehandbook.com/downloads/H2.pdf

## References

1. ↑ https://www.engineeringforchange.org/10-ways-to-put-human-waste-to-use/
2. ↑ https://superbeefy.com/how-much-poop-does-an-adult-human-produce-each-day-per-pound-of-food-eaten-and-what-is-poop-made-of/
3. ↑ **https://wetlandswork.com/products-and-services/sanitation-in-challenging-environments/handy-pods/**
4. ↑ http://www.mullis.se/mullis.se/Konstruktion.html
5. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal\_heat\_pump
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 https://humanurehandbook.com/downloads/H2.pdf page 58
7. ↑ http://www.peepoople.com/