Delicate topic

[Primrose]

Perhaps this has come up before (I'm a newbie here) but I rarely see any mention about human poo being added to compost heaps. Are there any specific health & safety reasons for not doing so? I remember my grandparents having an outdoor privvy with a "thunderbox" and the contents of that were always added to their compost heap to rot down and nurture their home grown vegetables. Their six children all lived to their 80's and 90's so it couldn't have been too much of a health hazard then!

[sprout]

Well, they still do it in China and probably elsewhere! My dad used to use dried sludge. I think there is a question about mercury content of modern poo - if it's your own recycled veg rather than other peoples' McFlurries, it should be good for the garden

[Chantal]

This was discussed at length on the old forum (you have no IDEA what you've just started) and I have a friend who in fact has an "en suite" Moule Earth Closet, the contents of which he buries in his garden. He has fabulous beans that only he will eat.

As Primrose says, knowing where the stuff has come from is a big part of this. There is a book available from Amazon called "Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure"; I have the sister publication "Liquid Gold: The Lore and Logic of Using Urine to Grow Plants" which caused much mirth and merriment a while back.

[oldherbaceous]

Dear primrose, i think it used to be buried more than it got composted.
I can remember if we had visitors coming round when i was a boy, i had to dig a hole in the garden and empty the bucket.
They used to call it night soil by the way Primrose.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

Theres no fool like an old fool.

[Johnboy]

Hi Primrose,
If you go to one of my flower beds and dig about 9" down there is still the oblong 6ft x 3ft of quarry tiles from the old Dunny. In the Hay loft there is a few of the old heavy duty Galvanized buckets and they are as good as the day they were finished with.
I have been here for 30 years and it was my Uncle who had a bathroom and septic tank fitted about 5 years before he died and I took over so around 35 years ago this property was served by a Dunny and no bathroom and only water drawn from the well.
The house has been in the family since 1720 so quite a few buckets have been buried over the ages.
The land is exceedingly fertile and on what is now my Veg area an entirely different colour to the soil on the rest of the property. I suspect that the human manure was methodically disposed of onto this area hence the change in soil colour. All my relatives lived to ripe old ages so it obviously did them no harm. The only snag is that I do not know how long after distributing did they used to grow any produce.
It obviously worked well in the past so can see no reason why it should not today.
Me! Well I have masses of Horse, Pig and FY Manure so I will pass on this one if you don't mind.
JB.

[Primrose]

Johnboy - was fascinated by your local history and your mention of the "Dunny." Have never heard it called that before and wonder if it's a local term for the privvy, or whether it was a slightly different building with other uses as well. (Just curious - find some of the old local usages very interesting.) It would be a shame if knowledge of them died out in our current "en suite bathroom" generation.

[Chantal]

Same thing I believe Primrose. Oop North they call the Privvy the the Netty, which is apparently derived from the Italian Gabinetto (toilet) brought over by the Romans. By 'eck you can learn stuff on this site!

[DahlisMarie]

When I was growing up here it was always the Dunny. However I only hear it used now for the outside toilets, not for the posh ones inside houses

It was always the dunny seat you found the redbacked spiders under.

[peter]

Dunny is Strine I believe.

Well done Chantal, very restrained.

There is only one real problem with humanure, great name by the way, that is parasites.
If heaven forbid one of the "dumpers" is infested with internal parasites you may contaminate your ground with eggs/larvae/juvenile stages of these and in the course of normal cultivation infect yourself.

Anyway, humanure pongs unless very properly treated in a composting toilet, I commute past a large sewage works and in the dark one can certainly tell where on the railway one has got to.

[Chantal]

Yeah, if the dumper has Helicobacter Pylori it could get really nasty. For all the gruesome details go to www.helico.com

[fen not fen]

Composting is supposed to kill the pathogens, but most authorities (eg the Centre for Alternative Technology) suggest taking the chance out of things and using the compost only on ornamentals or top fruit where there is no chance of contamination.