Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Our very own manure!

“Man — despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments — owes his existence to a six inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”

In a world where half the population lives on less than $2 a day, this axiom still reads true. At ECHO, we use science and technology to help the poor, improving agriculture techniques and introducing crops that are both hardy and nutritious.

But, we have no artistic pretensions! We've starting building our very own composting toilet, just waiting for some humanure (the Humanure Handbook is available in the ECHO Bookstore). This amazing contraption will evaporate off the liquid component of human waste (about 90% of the 'deposit'), then dry compost what remains.