Everyday you flush your toilet. Wake up, go to the bathroom, flush. After that you go on with your day flushing as you go, never really thinking about it too much. Yet, you are aware of current affairs and you care about your health and the enviorment and all that, you know global warming is happening, you can feel it, see it. You also know about water shortages and the fact of it being a finite resource on which life depends on..
So.. cool, after complianing about it and pointing fingers and feeling really good about yourself you go back into the bathroom and again, flush. Water. Remember? Did you just waste some more of it? Everytime you flush aproximately 5 gallons (19 liters) of water go away to neverland, now multiply this by, say, 8 times and now you wasted 40 gallons (152 liters) in just one day. It doesn't end there. Before you flush, you proceed to contaminate this fresh drinkable water with your own feces, making it forever a hazard. Human feces carry a number of diseases which you might not actually have but can carry with you.
So i give you the ultimate act of anarchy you yourself can do. They say anarchy starts at home, so here you go..
Yes. I am suggesting you stop flushing your toilet. Please bear with me, give me a chance like fellow steemians to explain myself a little bit and you'll see that there's a little more to it than just that.
OK
First step is to pull out your toilet. Don't get intimidated, it's not hard and you can do it. Close the water line that goes into your toilet's reservoir. Flush one last time :( Then undo the screws that hold the toilet down and thats it! Pull it out, watch for spillage, clean it and then cover up the pipe nicely (you'll figure that one).
So where do i shit now?
Where the toliet used to be there's now space for a 5 gallon (20L) bucket. On this bucket goes the toilet seat. There are many ready for sale dry toilets out there if you want it done fast. So now you will go inside the bucket and you will cover you turd with some mulch or dried leaves or duff, the stuff at the base of trees.. This is called composting, basically the procces where decomposing dead matter and organic waste turns into Humus, not the garbanzo dip, but the homogeneous nutrient rich benign matter that serves as food to soil that serves as food to plants that serves as food to us.. when the bucket gets full it gets dumped into a bigger pile, the one in charge of the composting, and more cover (mulch, duff, etc) is added. All this info is perfectly explained in Joseph Jenkins's, "The Humanure Handbook" which i read and helped me with my disgust for flushing. Strongly recommend.
I live in an urban area! Where do you expect me to pile up my shit?
I use a method where the feces are contained in a 50 gallon (200l.) plastic container, It takes very little space and IT DOESN'T SMELL. You will need two of these. If anyone is interested i will gladly show you how to make one. It is also supposed to be slightly faster to compost, my friend uses it after just 120 days after the last bucket dump. Personally i prefer 250 days. A year is the normal before your Humus is ready and free of disease. Did i mention diseases don't die when you flush? If you have a garden or patio you should have no trouble keeping a pile. This same compost pile can be used to dump your food and kitchen leftovers, the will also compost with your poop.
What do i do with this Humus stuff?
Here comes the best part. You grow food with it. You even have your first pot, your toilet! Al thought you might wanna keep it stashed in case you need to have some official or superv or someone of the like over to keep sheepish appearances. Now you can grow your own food using your own fertilizer. You can do this anywhere. Windows, patios, rooftops, anywhere!! Get together with neighbours, it's more fun to do this with someone!
What will i achieve with this?
1- You will save gallons and gallons of fresh water.
2- You will stop contaminating with your shit (anybody seen animals go in the water?).
3- You will grow food. Which might make you go less to the grocery store. Perhaps, since you are eating your own healthy organic food you will be less inclined to poison your body with processed factory made food, which rely on additives such as Soy Lecithin, which relys on huge mono cultivation of Soy, which relys on huge quantites of poisonous herbicides which also pollute our drinking water.
4- You will help to the Decentralization of food production, just like the Blockchain, without going to a comercial center to buy food that's been dead for days or weeks. You can trade your own, with others that have their own. And the best of all, it will be fresh, alive with nutrients, you will be blown away from the difference in taste and texture compared to what you buy at your local human feed store.
5- Keep your seed for next year, so you can eat it again. Keeping and trading seeds is how food decentralization and independence is accomplished.
By choosing to not flush, a series of other beneficial events starts to occur. We connect with life's natural cycle. More importantly this single act of private anarchy if done en masse has the potential to reshape our communities.
If you stuck with me till the end of this i thank you much. I hope this ramble can inspire more serious and informed discusions on the subject. If you are interested and have any questions or suggestions i would love to hear from you.
The pic is from google images.
Some info from "The Humanure Handbook" by Joseph Jenkins. (READ!)
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STOPWelcome on steemit friend! Good read! Indeed, this is something everybody needs to give more thought to! Upvoted and resteemed!
thanks!
good post, @elcarpo - this is a long way from deliberately blocking toilets in government buildings to try to screw up the system. Like your positivity
thank you, like that one as well.. this one is more of a pacifist approach..
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