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ENCLOSED LONG-TERM COMPOSTING

Unexamined "tradition" could very well be our deadliest enemy as we face new threats to life on planet earth. We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them --- Albert Einstein Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. --- Albert Einstein "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult subsides. Time makes more converts than reason" ---Thomas Paine - Common sense (1776) The point is, we have to start question the wrongs and in spite of habit and taboo see it for what it IS and DOES to the planet.

WHAT IS ELTC ?

Enclosed Long Term Composting it the better alternative to flush toilets, sewers and sewage 'treatment'. It uses no water, is entirely odor free, is easy to use, looks great, and functions in perfect harmony with the environment. Indeed its good for it!

ELTC has four essential characteristics:

1. Always odor-free: before, during and after use... because all odors are ventilated down the toilet and not across the room as is usually the case with flush toilets!

2. Over a long term period (many decades), the process shrinks the solid components to near ash content 1-2% of the added organics ... yet, the equipment takes up surprisingly little room for what it accomplishes. It eliminates transportation of toilet wastes which is one of the primary reasons for why we have sewers.

3. The process concomitantly renders urine odor-free and pathogen-free and yields an organic fertilizer which is without metal contamination and can happily be used on the garden.

4. It neither uses nor pollutes water and has a very small over-all energy demand ... therefore it is an ideal toilet system for the new millenium to counteract global warming, pollution and drought.

 

HOW DOES IT WORK?

	The waste that takes up space in the process tank is predominantly the last year's addition and the roughly 30% remaining from the year before that plus the 12-14 % from two years ago etc. as can be seen in the diagram below. After 5-6 years the waste volume in the processing tank only increases with 1-2 % per year.
We will in the coming text refer to this reduction as an "exponential decline"
To the right is yet another way to describe the volume resulting from 30 years of composting in a long term composting tank. One reason why this technology hasn't "caught on" is that nobody seems to believe that the waste pile only grows with the 1-2% year rate after 5-6 years. The assumption is that when the volume looks like approaching "full", it is necessary to empty the tank ...

 

 

WHY SHOULD WE ABANDON WHAT WE DO NOW ?

There are many good reasons -- let us mention four here:

1. Protecting scarce resource number one: clean water:
There is irrefutable global warming -- droughts and floodings will increase probably even faster than the most pessimistic official reports, and with that, clean drinking water may soon be the true scarce resource in the world.. It borders on insanity to use 1/3 of our drinkingwater to deliberately pollute it with pathogens and spread it in the environment!

2. Protecting scarce resource number two: clean fertilizers:
Long term use of chemical fertilizers actually depletes the soil. The balanced nutrients contained in the human waste, in the urine, can easily be recovered in a directly usable form through long term composting. systems. Thus human waste is put to good use, rather than replacing it with an inferior source of chemical plantnutrients, where only a part of the needed ingrediances gets replaced.

3. Protecting scarce resource number three: fossil fuels:
Now that global warming is accelerating and every one is experiencing various manifestations and consequences all around us (observations so obvious that even the US republican government cannot deny it any longer), workable, effective strategies for reversing CO2 production are more crucial than ever if we want our children to have a decent life on the planet. Replacing the nutrient base in chemical fertilizers with human and animal waste would save a huge amount of energy in all the steps from extraction, processing and distribution of chemical fertilizers. Phosphorous is a finate resource which requires increasing amounts of energy to extract. This would also greatly improve the quality of our food, which is now impoverished by the narrow replacement of chemically produced nutrients lacking all the micronutrients.

4. Protecting scarce resource number four: money for public works
Waste transportation counts for around 90% of the total cost of the waste industry and is accepted because there is wide spread ignorance and prejudice against keeping the waste on-site even if it doesn't cause problems ... Simply containing and processing the human excreta and organic waste on-site in a long term composting system could eliminate the transportation of said wastes.

 

Where ?

ELTC can be used anywhere and can rapidly be augmented with new transport systems that use air instead of drinkingwater. Here are some examples of where the system is used today:

Highway project in Europe (E6 sweden):

 

Here are projects on beaches and highways in the USA:

 

 

When ?