| "But doesn't it smell?" Riddle me this: What is very useful, saves water, is environment-friendly, and
smells like a walk in the forest?
N ot the latest ozone-friendly
cologne. The answer is potty, after its converted to an almost dry, crumbly, black stuff
that smells light, pleasant and earthy. Paul Calvert, a British sanitation engineer,
describes the smell of the compost formed by the special toilets designed by him as
‘a walk in the forest — a pleasant, woody, earthy scent’. Sounds
unbelievable? That's exactly how others reacted to Calvert's ideas when he tried to
convince fishing communities in Kerala that his compost toilet actually worked. You could
convert all your excreta into useful manure, by allowing it to decompose.
Uno Winblad
is a Swedish expert on ecological
sanitation
|
Says Calvert, remembering the first time the not-so-convinced officials
and members of the community he was working with, gathered around to see the vaults of the
his first toilet being opened, "This was the acid test. Even the slightest
imagination of a smell or something unsightly would have ended the compost toilet
experiment instantaneously and resulted in the lynching of team and designer. The PCO
managing committee secretary and civil engineer were looking on in awe as we opened the
back wall of the vault. For each brick we removed they retreated another pace, quite
convinced we were opening the gates of hell itself!"
It took a lot of persuasion and convincing to get the fisherfolk to realise that
continuous and safe piped water supply was a dream, and that this new compost toilet was a
technology that was best suited for their needs. Not only did one save all that water, but
also the village wells did not get polluted.
Paul Ccalvert
has been trying to promote compost
toilets in Kerala
|
We Indians are extremely faecophobic, in other words we find anything to
do with human faeces disgusting, degrading or polluting. Says Calvert,"Its quite
right to be faecophobic in some ways — faeces are potentially dangerous, but it must
not result in just trying to pretend they don’t exist and therefore exposing
ourselves much more to the danger. It should prompt us to deal with them
responsibly." The Chinese and Japanese on the other hand have perhaps been
traditionally too faecophilic (friendly). Human waste has always been considered a
resource. In China raw faeces is used to fertilise fields, though that exposes them to
infections much more.
Can you consider all your potty as a resource to be recycled and rather than as a waste
to be chucked away? Uno Winblad, an expert on ‘ecological sanitation’, thinks
so. "A key feature of ecological sanitation is that it regards human excreta as a
resource to be recycled rather than as a waste to be disposed of", says he. Winblad
argues that recycling 1. prevents direct pollution caused by sewage, 2. returns it as
nutrients to soil and plants, and 3. reduces the need for chemical fertilisers. He
believes that the flush-and-discharge sewage systems make the problem of sanitation much
worse.
Yet, more and more of us want fancy ‘English’ flush toilets in our homes.
"What? No flush!?", you might ask. A big mind-block we have yet to overcome.
"It won’t happen overnight", says Calvert, "People cannot yet easily
come to terms with non-flush toilets…! But imagine the reduction in water supply
requirements to each residential area and, therefore, how many more people could have
piped water if lakhs of us stopped throwing more than 10 times the amount of water we
drink down the toilet simply to flush away what we just pee’d out…!"
| Just as I
am doing the nuisance... Toilets were introduced on
Indian trains only after a passenger, Okhit Chandra Sen, wrote a letter to the Divisional
Traffic Superintendent, Sahabgunj Divisional Office in 1909, complaining about how he
missed the train when he got down to attend the call of nature. The Times of India
reproduced the unedited letter:
Beloved Sir,
I am arrive by passenger train at Ahmedpore Station and my belly is too much swelling with
jackfruit. I am therefore sent to privy. Just as I am doing the nuisance that guard making
whistle blow for train to go off and I am running with lota in one hand and dhoti in the
next when I fall over and expose all my shockings to many female women on the platform. I
got leaved on Ahmedpore Station.
This is too much bad in
passengers go to make dung that dam guard not wait train five minutes for him. I am
therefore pray otherwise I am making big report to papers. Pray your honour to make big
fine on that dam guard for public sake otherwise I am making big report to papers.
Yours faithfully,
(Sd/- Okhit Chandra Sen) |
|
A
Down To Earth Supplement
