Category Archives: Uncategorized
EcoSan Hacks for the Northwest
The PSU Ecological Restoration Guild and the Student Water Resources Group brought us in to speak on campus last Wednesday about our hopes and dreams for ecological sanitation in the Northwest. You can see images from case studies we discussed in our powerpoint and watch the whole presentation. We focused the talk on toilets and [...]
Eco-Toilet Summit II: Human Waste and Why it Matters
Check out the full hand out from the Summit. It’s full of facts, figures and great resources on eco-toilets. I had the good fortune of being able to attend the 2nd Eco-Toilet Summit in Falmouth, Massachusetts on July 16th. The event was a follow up to the 1st EcoToilet Summit held on March 19th (Read [...]
Can Iceland Crowdsource their Constitution?
check out Good’s article on Iceland’s process for drafting a new constitution.
The 90s: US starts land applying sludge, Swizterland stops
In the 1990s, Switzerland banned the re-use of sludge for any agricultural purposes because of the high heavy metal and other persistent pollutants. Austria, and Sweden also banned such re-use. The main concern was that since waste water systems combine industrial and residential waste, the treated material could be harmful to the longterm health of [...]
Ecological Sanitation in Haiti: Talk at Reed College Today
Today Sasha Kramer (99′) will be talking at her alma mater about her work with SOIL to provide dry toilets in Haiti. Her talk is at 4:45 p.m., Wednesday, April 27, Biology 19. SOIL hired Joe Jenkins to come down to Haiti and consult on sanitation techniques down there. Here’s a great video of his [...]
Science Posters available at People’s for Earth Day
People’s Food Coop is holding an Earth Day Celebrationon April 20th. You’ll be able to pick up a copy of our awesome posters and eat delicious tamales.
Name that Smell!
So I’m researching what methods we should use for evaluating the air quality of the greenhouse where we do in-vessel thermophilic composting, since air quality is a concern for regulators. There are soo many options. For starters I don’t think we’ll have air quality concerns because we’ll actually be maintaining aerobic conditions in the vessels [...]
Statistics of the Day
I’m finalizing our write up on the experimental composting greenhouse we’ve been working on and I found this great Table today in the Integral Urban House book. Leading Cause of Death in the US in 1900: Influenza/pneumonia/bronchitis was #1 (14.4% of total deaths) heart disease accounted for 8% of deaths 1970: Heart Disease was #1 [...]
Look Mom I’m on TV!
Check out Art Beat’s coverage of the Sustainable Phosphorous Summit’s art show in Arizona.
Commonly held wrong assumptions about Sanitation
“At all levels: • Improved water supply alone leads to better health. There is no need for sanitation. • Sanitation improvements have minimal health benefits and no socioeconomic benefits. • All good sanitation options are expensive and difficult to implement. • Water, air, and soil are free goods and we should not have to pay [...]
