Comments on: Pee Standing Up … for the Earth!

By: Stacy

Stacy — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:30:08 +0000

There is a viable solution to all that grey water and waste that doesn’t involve flushing water down the drain — it’s called COMPOSTING!!!

Yes, you can compost human waste… For details, I highly recommend a great book — The Humanure Handbook!

It also has great information on how to channel grey water into reservoirs off your property that can then recycle it naturally through plantlife.

And that’s a valid point about not wanting to install water-free urinals in your home. Other things get wasted in this world besides water, and the number of items used to produce urinals, toilets, etc. are amongst them. Live Green!

By: Sid Morrison

Sid Morrison — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:37:15 +0000

@Jason-
Absolutely! Indeed, there IS regional variation in the price of fuel on account of access to ports, pipelines, refineries, as well as state government regulations that mandate certain fuel content. As it turns out, I happen to actually live in one of the areas of the country that has highest gasoline costs. I don’t expect you (in apparently a cheaper fuel area) to subsidize my prices to “level the playing field”. That would be stupid and would encourage inefficiency in markets. In deciding to live here, I have factored in high fuel costs, lots of snow, and high state taxes. But I balance that with a job I like, fairly low housing cost and proximity to family. When governments tinker with markets to encourage people to live in places that don’t make sense, you wind up packing people into areas without enough water and insufficient power generation. Or living on the banks of a portion of the Mississsippi that habitually overflows (but they know the Feds will bail them out again).

By: Anthony

Anthony — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:33:11 +0000

Melissa-

You ask for a solution to reusing gray water? There is one. It’s called a septic tank. I live in a fairly rural area of Oklahoma and have one. The nice result is I never have to water my lawn and it stays nice and green all summer long.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:03:34 +0000

Believe it or not, the Wal-mart Home Office in Bentonville, AR has recently installed waterless toilets. I have to say, they are pretty nice, and there’s a little bee you can aim at about 3/4 of the way down that offers an ideal angle of preventing splashback.

By: David

David — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:27:23 +0000

I never flush my pee.

If its yellow let it mellow, if its brown flush it down.

live it; love it

By: Melissa

Melissa — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:56:18 +0000

The no-flushes are a great idea for places where there’s likely a bunch of guys going number one, like a bar or a sports stadium,or for new homes just being built, but I’m not sure if the savings would be worth it in a regular already built family home. It’s always bothered me that so much water gets literally flushed down the toilet, but I don’t know that adding one to my existing house would be cost effective. I’m all about being environmental when I can, even paying a little bit more, but I’m a realist,too. I can’t see adding one of those as a viable option financially for most families.
I wish there was a convenient way to switch where in your house water goes,too. It makes sense for used dirty toilet water to go into the sewer, but why does my fairly clean bathwater and laundry machine water have to go there automatically? Sure, I don’t want to drink a glass of it or cook with it, but it would be awesome if there was some sort of switch I could add to my plumbing that would let me select where it goes and I could choose to have it reused for something like toilet flushing or washing the car.

By: Moon

Moon — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:31:34 +0000

@Jason! You do – it’s called pricing. See OPEC!

By: Jason!

Jason! — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:04:28 +0000

@Sid-

I live in an area with plentiful oil reserves and refining capability. Am I allowed to use your same logic for water in regards to oil and gasoline?

By: Bison P?

Bison P? — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:42:46 +0000

Ted’s Montana Grill, the bison steak place from Ted Turner, uses no flush urinals. I think they do so in all of their locations.

By: Sid Morrison

Sid Morrison — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:08:44 +0000

@Moon-
Yes, I am aware that water sourcing from the Great Lakes is a contentious issue, but it’s really quite puny compared to the mayhem that is wreaked when people are subsidized (via artificially cheap water) to live in deserts. Folks who want to live in deserts like those I mentioned should be free ot do so, but those of us in the Northeast and Rust Belt should understand that we are financing a foolish large scale migration into places that really are not fit for large scale cities. Cheap water is considered “a basic right” for desert-dwellers and the rest of us suffer to bring them it at prices well below what it really costs. No matter Las Vegas & Phoenix (each in building booms) waste it like silly planting temperate-climate landscapes everywhere — take a look at how ambient humidity levels how risen there over the past 30 years! It’s no longer a “dry heat” and it’s because of all the golf courses and homeowners that like to keep their pretty New England landscapes. Desert-dwellers don’t see the true costs of the water, so they have no incentive to conserve and they keep moving there in greater numbers. If they did pay what the water truly cost, they would xeriscape (low water plants like cacti) and be fanatical about saving water. Instead, they pressure the Feds into getting cheap water and force the rest of us into using draconian water-Nazi plumbing fixtures.

Stop subsidizing foolish internal migration through government sponsored cheap water, flood insurance, hurricane insurance, wild fire insurance, &c. Such meddlings distorts efficient markets. People should be free to live where they choose, but let them bear the full costs of the bad as well as the good. You like to live on the nice warm Gulf Coast? Super! Just don’t come to me hat in hand when your house blows away or whine that hurricane insurance costs too much. When is someone going to pipe me natural gas at below market cost so I can run my thermostat at 80F all winter? Should people in the Southwest pay taxes to have the Federal government come and plow my driveway in the winter? Bah.

Oh, Jennifer… Yeah, water can run dry in places. Droughts happen & they have for millenia (e.g. the Sphinx was formerly in a pretty verdant area). Deal with it (through responsible conservation) and move if necessary. That’s what people have done through history. If you can’t adapt, move. Google “cistern”. You may find building one useful. Ditto for the grey water collection system Rachel mentioned.

Straight Talk from Sid.
PS – My 1950s toilets use water like crazy, but one flush works. Every time.