Guest author and sustainability guru, Lindianne Sarno, has contributed a hallmark article worthy of the Composted Blog site.

Five Gallon Buckets

Dear Eco-zoners,

This cool crisp morning I am struck by how my morning chores at the music garden use five-gallon buckets. The grey water from rinsing last night's dishes waits in a corner of the kitchen in a five gallon bucket. It's going on the kales and garlics and bunching onions and flowering arugulas this morning. They perked right up from yesterday's bucket and I'm going to give them one more today for a good spring growth.

Now, last night I was reading the Humanure Handbook, a guide to composting human manure, by Joseph Jenkins, and in addition to being inspired by the business opportunity inherent in hauling neighborhood humanure buckets to a neighborhood composting facility and creating the healthiest, sweetest compost ever, I got up this morning with a distaste for ever again pooping in Tucson's drinking water.

The first step to setting up an inexpensive composting toilet, says Joe Jenkins, is to collect your materials: four identical five gallon buckets (that way they all fit the seat). I'm going for the minimalist version today (a plywood seat on top of a five gallon bucket); later will build and finish the hardwood sculpture art version for use in the family bathroom frequented by my stepson and his friends and my music students. Old Kurt across the street has loaned me an old saber saw so I can cut a five-gallon bucket sized circle in the minimalist composting toilet seat.

When you read the Humane Handbook you will see: for composting to occur without odor the dedicated composting toileter must have ready plenty of straw, leaf mold, rice hulls, or other fine litter to cover the humanure. So I've been raking leaves this morning, preparing for the big moment.

We will draw the curtain of discretion over the rest of today's proceedings here at the music garden. But Joe Jenkins says composting humanure can be done safely, healthily, elegantly, and pleasantly, and I aim to prove him right. Tucson's permaculture pioneers Dan Dorsey, Barbara Rose, Joelee Joyce and many others already have great humanure systems going, so I am not the pioneer here, just dedicated enough to Tucson's future to say publicly, if we don't stop pooping in our drinking water we are going to wind up drinking our pooping water.

Well, time to go get an extension cord, fire up Kurt's saber saw, and burn some coal in the Four Corners area to generate the small amount of electricity necessary to liberate my personal humanure from the sewer system and capture this precious resource for our garden.

A challenge to Tucson's university and high school students: which will be the first class (15-30 students) to create a system of safe, healthy composting toilets and cartage linking your places of residence to a Sustainable Tucson neighborhood humanure composting facility? The first class to do this will receive the coveted Youth Humanure Award in Tucson's upcoming Green Awards, a gala event full of music, inspiring speakers, comedy, and sustainable fashions to be held the evening of Earth Day 2008. Your entire class will be honored with full scholarships to a permaculture drylands design course. The first step is: read the Humanure Handbook. It's available at the public library and is also sold at Silverbell Trading.

Sustainably,
Lindianne