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ECO-HYGIENE
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BUGS, ECOLOGY, POO, AND WHAT WE NEED TO DO
Published in "Tribe" magazine, issue 11, 2000
We are one with the Earth and one with each other. This is the awareness we are coming home to, individually and collectively. This awareness is important, but we need to apply our wisdom and knowledge in practical ways too.
Talking with beautiful friends and acquaintances in streets, homes, forests and at the doofs has made me aware of a need in the community for greater understanding of how our personal and collective hygeine relates to the ecology. I have been asked to share with you some of the things I have learned as a lifelong nature child, environmental activist and research biologist.
ABOUT SHIT
Shit, poo, crap, scat, bog, whatever we call it, think or feel about it, it is part of nature. Just like all things in nature, it has a place and a purpose. What one living thing throws away, another uses, but the style of throwing away is very important. Our shit does not belong in water or in food. It does not belong in eyes, mouths, vaginas, lungs, noses, stomachs or on our skin.
BUGS AND BALANCES
Why is it so important to put shit in the right place? Let's start with what's in it: waste products of our food digestion (waste to us, but nutrient for other tiny creatures), some water, lots of microbes. Microbes (sometimes referred to as "bugs") such as bacteria, yeasts, protozoa and viruses, are all microscopic creatures that have their special role in ecology, but also need to be in the right place to do their proper job, or else they can cause problems inside us and in the environment. To understand this, imagine lantana, cane toads, blue-green algae, water hyacinth - they are all beautiful living things that fit perfectly into the ecology of their original homes, but when they get into the wrong places where they are not in equilibrium they can take over and cause a lot of trouble for other living things. It's like that with microbes too. Some microbes belong on your skin, some in your bowells, some in your mouth, etc. and they do a good job there as long as they stay in balance. But if they get out of balance or they get into the wrong places, Trouble! Eye infections, diarrhoea, thrush, hepatitis, infected cuts, blood poisoning, food poisoning, tetanus, and many other health problems result when microbes get into the wrong places.
MIGHTY MICROBES
So what about the microbes in shit? Let's take one of them as an example. It is called Escherichia coli (pronounced esher-eesha cole-eye, and abbreviated to E.coli). It lives in our intestines and is one of the things that comes out in our shit. While it dwells in our intestines it makes Vitamin K for us, and because our bodies cannot make this vitamin, the little E.coli is doing us a favour. It gets a warm, yummy, safe home and we get the vitamin. This kind of nice mutual arrangement is quite common in nature. BUT what happens if E.coli gets somewhere other than your intestines? If it's in the food you eat, and gets into your stomach, it causes diarrhoea. If it gets into the vagina it causes inflammation and soreness. If it gets into cuts and other wounds it causes infection and can get into the bloodstream and go to the heart or brain and end up killing you. There are many microbes that we don't have any friendly arrangements with at all, such as hepatitis A and giardia, which also infect us when we consume food or water that's been contaminated with shit.
BYRON BELLY!
At best these microbes make you unwell for a few days, but at their worst can make you ill for years or even kill you. Microbes cause vomitting and diarrhoea by producing toxins. When your body detects the presence of the toxins it reacts by quickly throwing out as much as it can by the nearest available exit in hopes of getting rid of the microbe that's causing the problem. The trouble with diarrhoea and vomitting is that the food and water leave your body too quickly and there's not enough time to extract the nourishment you need. So you get dehydrated and undernourished. Young children are especially at risk and can suffer loss of energy, long-term illness and impaired development.
AND THE REST OF THE PLANET....
Is it only us that gets sick from our sewage? No. Our shit getting into water upsets the ecology there too. We know shit is a good nutrient for plants; they grow very well in it! Their microscopic water-dwelling cousins, the algae, also grow well in it. In fact they grow so well in shitty water that they can poison and suffocate fish and other creatures that live in the water. (Agricultural fertilizers washing into water systems do this too; big areas of the Great Barrier Reef are dying because of algae growing in the fertilizer washed into the sea from farms).
HOW, WHEN, WHERE?
How do microbes from shit get into food?
1. When we don't wash our hands after shitting.
2. Using fresh human shit as compost to grow root vegetables like potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, etc, and ones like melons and pumpkins that sit on the ground.
3. Rats and flies like to eat your shit. If it is uncovered they
get into it, get it on their feet and mouths, then go sucking on and tramping over your food and utensils. (Infections of eyes and wounds are also caused by flies with shitty feet!).
How do microbes from shit get into water?
1. Flushable toilets and overloaded sewage systems. Septics overflowing and flooding (this happened at the Summer Dreaming doof at Drake - lots of badly infected scratches and cuts resulted).
2. Washing your hands in creeks, ponds, tanks, etc after shitting.
3. Shitting near waterways or uncovered on the ground where water is making its way downhill into the creeks and wetlands. In high rainfall areas like North West NSW, almost all the ground surface is catchment, even if you can't see a creek flowing where you squat.
SO WHATTA WE DO?
LOOS:
Indoor toilets: If you're building a new house, go for a dry composter rather than a septic or running sewage system.
Pit toilets: Dig them as far away from water as possible, and preferably on level ground so the rain doesn't carry shit downhill into water. Dig them shallow (it's only the top few inches of soil where all the best and fastest breakdown of living waste materials occurs). Cover each bowell movement with fresh soil or grass clippings to keep flies off. Cover the pit with a sheet of something rigid at night to stop rats digging it up. Add red worms to speed up the decomposition and recycling of the shit in the soil.
Going bush: same principles as pit toilets: dig shallow, well away from water, cover afterwards.
WASHING:
Wash hands, especially fingertips, thoroughly straight after going to the toilet.
Instead of washing your hands in the creek, pond, or the dishwashing bucket (don't laugh, it happens!), take some water in an appropriately marked bottle and use that to wash your hands away from the watercourse.
Before swimming in a creek, waterhole, or even a swimming pool, be sure your body has been cleaned since you last pooed. Use the wash water bottle to clean your bum first! If you currently have a problem with diarrhoea, it is considerate not to swim at all.
Help little children to learn good hygeine. They often dabble their fingers in communal food, and it is important that they are shown all stages of toilet hygeine. Showing them directly is better than trying to explain. They understand seeing and doing easier than words.
THE COMPOST
Use the human toilet to grow tall vegies like tomatoes, peas, beans, and fruit trees, etc. That way the part you eat has not been down in contact with the shit. (Some nasty microbes sit and wait in the soil for a long time so they can get back into you on your food!).
For root vegies and ground-hugging vegies and fruit, use your food scrap heap and only horse, cow, goat and chicken poo. The microbes in the guts of these animals do not generally hurt us, but the plants get just as much benefit. (The shit from animals like dogs and cats that eat meat can carry diseases that affect us. Best to apply the same hygeine principles to it that we do to our own shit - pick it up with a shovel or palm frond it and put it into the human toilet. This also helps protect our children when they are playing on the ground).
AMEN
We are a big species of creature and there are lots of us. We produce a lot of body waste. We therefore have a special responsibility to be conscious of what we do, so that we can enjoy our gatherings and our planet without causing illness and pollution. Our mother and all her creatures will appreciate our efforts to keep the balance and show respect in practical ways. It's not difficult, just takes a little care and forethought.
Love to all the Family, from Suranga, Oct 1999