Unveiling the unexplored potential of waste, we delve into the transformative power of excrement. A resource often overlooked, it holds the key to sustainable solutions and innovative energy alternatives. Prepare to rethink everything you thought you knew about waste.
Our ********* is a natural, renewable, and sustainable resource – if only we can overcome our visceral disgust of it
In the fall, as the clouds over Kazan swelled with dark heavy clouds and rain never stopped until it turned to snow, my grandfather prepped our small family farm for the long Soviet winter.
- He donned his overalls, gloves, and boots, and headed over to our septic tank that held the sewage produced by our household for the entire year. He lifted its heavy lid, tied two old buckets to sturdy ropes, and spent hours transferring the tank’s content onto our land.
Beyond Eurocentrism
If you really want decolonisation, go beyond cultural criticism to the deep structural insights of economist Samir Amin Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven.
When people began aggregating in cities, shit really hit the fan
Dumping waste in a local body of water proved dangerous – the upstream residents simply polluted the drinking and washing water of their downstream neighbours, and triggered disease outbreaks
- Even today, diarrhoeal diseases sicken and kill about 827,000 people a year in the developing world, according to the World Health Organization
- In the developed world, we built flushing toilets, underground pipes and gigantic sewage treatment plants to protect ourselves from our massive ********* piles
- Yet, these marvels of modern engineering have done significant damage to Earth’s ecology
- Soils grow barren, so we use synthetic fertiliser, which isn’t anywhere near as good as the real shit and also is very polluting to produce
- Restoring that broken link is essential to our food security and healthy ecology
In Japan, its value was measured in gold.
Fertiliser from people’s bottoms was an easy and naturally occurring resource that never ran out, as long as there were people
- Thanks to the fertiliser from their own bottoms, the Japanese converted their unfriendly rocky lands into flourishing fields.
