The Sanitation Emergency

Have you ever had a problem with your toilet and while you waited hours for the plumber to arrive it became a disgusting smelly mess?

Now, just imagine if the problem was caused by a total lack of running water, and you were without running water for days or weeks. What then?

Living as we do with instant and unquestioned access to clean running water and flush toilets, it never occurs to us that in places where those amenities are lacking diarrhea is one of the biggest killers on the planet. The diarrhea is caused by lack of proper sanitation. Diseases such as cholera, dysentery and typhus run rampant when adequate sewage treatment is not available.

Properly composted human waste is safe, and eliminates the disease risks that come when our regular sanitation systems break down.

In the past few years we’ve witnessed a number of disasters where regions in the United States lacked electricity and running water for periods ranging from days to weeks. Because of this, I decided to cover the proper composting of human waste in my most recent book, The Mini Farming Guide to Composting.

Naturally, I have long maintained facilities for safely composting human waste. I don’t usually use them, but I’ve been grateful for those facilities during the handful of extreme weather events that have necessitated their use over the past several years.

Getting yourself setup to handle human waste safely via composting is easy and inexpensive. Because emergencies can manifest when least expected, it is better to be ready in advance than to be scratching your head at the last minute wondering what to do!