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Thread: Retrofitting Suburbia into Self-Sustainable Cooperatives Post Crash

Sewage

Last Update:    7/14/2009 12:00 PM CST

Assumptions:

A. Over a short period of time municipal sewage systems will cease to function due to governmental collapse, loss of electrical power or lack water to flush with.

B. Homes on septic tanks may become unsanitary due to limited water to flush with.

C. Currently, half of a home's water consumption is for sewage disposal.

D. History of large scale disasters always shows us the danger is that unsanitary conditions cause typhoid, cholera, hepatitis, etc.  It is generally caused by sewage contaminating drinking water.   

E. You are still subject to the disease if you manage sewage properly but your neighbors do not.

F. Long-term survivors will be those who know how to make soil so they can feed themselves.

G. Fertilizers will become nonexistent.

 

Change of Format:

Sewage will not be shown as an outline of options but rather as a foregone single solution in that this solution is the only one that abolishes all of the negatives above and in a simple, efficient manner.

Solution:

A. Collect sewage in homemade toilets and compost it using the Human Manure compost method.

Advantages:

1. All residents already have required materials on hand.

2. No odor or inconvenience.

3. Yields best organic compost / fertilizer known to man.
    Requires 2 years decomposing to kill all pathogens.
    Composting is labor free.
    
Anything biological can be added to compost pile, including meat, tampons, baby diapers, road kill, paper, etc. This helps dispose of normal household waste as well.

4. Method is approved by the EPA.

5. For a family of four, requires only 4 gallons of water a month for sewage disposal, making survival on minimum amounts of water practical.

6. Easy to convert outlaying neighbor's houses to this method as it will not require community assets to do so. This will safeguard community water quality.

7. Each person will have a reusable cloth toilet wipe. Recycle wash water onto compost pile.

 

       See:          Humanmanure Method Recap

       See Also: Humanmanure Handbook

 

B. Disconnect Sewer: Prior to an emergency, purchase a 3” PVC slip cap costing about $2 so that you can disconnect yourself from the sewer system.  Shit flows downhill.  Every so often an underground electric lift station raises it so it can flow downhill again until it reaches the treatment plant.  If brownouts occur then the backed up shit will flow into 10% or 15% unlucky resident's homes near the nonfunctional lift stations rendering the homes uninhabitable.  You cannot tell where the underground lift stations are. The $3 investment will be well worth it if shit hits the fan!  Just cut the pipe at the street and glue or stick the cap on and put a rock in front of it.  Double check at the hardware store to see if your community uses 3 inch sewer lines from the house. If you do not have a cap then do whatever you have to to seal off the line.

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