[Greenbuilding] ... device to purify human waste, make compost and generate electricity

sanjay jain sanjayjainuk at yahoo.co.uk
Fri Aug 17 10:42:09 CDT 2012


Urine diversion may prevent electricity generation (from article: the organic waste matter is the fuel and nitrate is the oxidant)

IMO - it makes more sense to use the urine as a fertilizer than generate electricity - those people who don't have access to electricity know how to use latrines at night, usually by using 10 cent candles.


What I find offensive about these projects (composting toilets for the poor) is that they miss 2 vital issues:

1) Composting toilets projects have been tried many many times, they FAIL. In fact toilet projects in general fail because they are technology orientated. The fact is (and I know this from experience) that people who live without toilets don't really want them. The real issue is changing their mindset about water and sanitation, before giving them a solution. 


2) The real problem (from an environment perspective) is us, not the poor. We need to change before we can ask others to change. What gives us the right to ask others to use technology we don't use them selves? If we adopted eco-friendly technology, the poor will follow suit.


~sanjay


________________________________
 From: Reuben Deumling <9watts at gmail.com>
To: sanjay jain <sanjayjainuk at yahoo.co.uk>; Green Building <greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org> 
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 9:50 AM
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] ... device to purify human waste, make compost and generate electricity
 

sounds intriguing but also very complicated. A urine diverting (composting) toilet, presumably would accomplish some of the same things and has no moving parts. 



On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 5:55 AM, sanjay jain <sanjayjainuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

http://www.umass.edu/loop/content/engineer-builds-low-cost-device-purify-human-waste-make-compost-and-generate-electricity
>
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