Self Reliance & Shit

beautytoo · Post by **beautytoo** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 9:10 pm

The concept of self reliance is an issue because we have come to doubt that we are self reliant. That doubt is marked in the minds of those lucid enough enumerate the ways in which we are dependent upon a power structure that manages our obedience and projects futures based upon assumptions about what obedient masses will produce and consume, in order to maintain a mesmerizing production/consumption carnival, over time. Burning man is a symbolic denouncement by a lucid and unwilling culture of livestock. Baaaaaahhhhh, Yeah! I have a lot of great ideas about how to bring that unwillingness to be livestock beyond the hopeful symbolism represented by the burning man experience, but I am going to talk briefly about a really shitty one.
About a year before my first burning man I was introduced to a book called The Hunmanure Handbook, by Joseph Jenkins, that was an appeal to take note of the barbarism of treating human feces as a toxic waste and using precious domestic water to flush it into groundwater. deposits. It outlined a system for collecting and composting human feces into topsoil and contrasted that with systems for depositing human feces directly on agricultural lands, to the detriment of local populations. After reading the book I set up my own collection/composting system and stopped using my flush toilet. I noticed a curious sense of wealth that I got from viewing my feces as a resource rather that a waste product. I have tried to explain it to my friends by asking them to imagine how they would feel about defecation if they suddenly began shitting rolls of quarters. I live in a rural setting, some distance from where I do business, and I am thrilled to hold onto a good dump and get it home rather than giving it up to the city sewer. Anyhow, it occurred to me that if we are going to gather realistically in the name of self reliance and truly leave no trace, we need to get real about taking responsibility for our shit. So I devised a plan for collecting the feces for my burning man camp of twelve and also the feces of a neighbor camp of eight. It was a big hit in both camps and to some of our nearby neighbors as well who enjoyed having an alternative to the porta-pottys. We never got around to building an enclosure for the toilet and it turned out to be strangely liberating for the whole neighborhood for people to be doing their business in front of God and everybody. I am not necessarily advocating publicly visible shitters, but the incidental occurrence of that state of affairs in this case produced a positive, interesting character to the neighborhood.
The feces was layered with an organic mulch made of pine sawdust from a portable milling operation and ground green tumbleweeds. So the five gallon collection buckets were not reserviors of pure shit/piss, like the porta-pottys are. The result is a much more sanitary situation if not entirely odor free. I have plans for bringing an inoculated compost bin next year to avoid the problem of holding tanks that are not immediately being subjected to aerobic decomposition. It is the anaerobic processes that produce messy circumstances-ie odors.
Here is to stepping off the merry-go-round. May we succeed as brilliantly as burning man shows us we could!

robbidobbs · Post by **robbidobbs** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 9:14 pm

<sigh>
oh brother
...

Put together a proposal.
You can get help from the members of pottie-list at burningman dot com, which you are more than welcome to join.

Shit is what we do.

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 10:07 pm

Clivas Muldram! lives on...this is a great idea especially if we ever face getting our sanitary yanked

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 10:13 pm

I have worked in places, mainly very rural environments, where people used outhouses. A little sprinkle of lime on your "buisness" did wonders to keep the odor controlled. How would that impact your composting process, if at all? And I was wondering if the alkali playa dust might even serve the same purpose.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 10:14 pm

Oh, and by lime I ment ground limestone ... not the fruit.

Lydia Love · Post by **Lydia Love** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 10:20 pm

apparently playa works great if you bring a bucket shitter

but will clog up the potties as we know them in a jiffy. not so good.

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 1:55 am

robbidobbs wrote:
<sigh>
oh brother
...

Put together a proposal.
You can get help from the members of pottie-list at burningman dot com, which you are more than welcome to join.

Shit is what we do.

ditto

beautytoo · Post by **beautytoo** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 12:52 pm

I was hoping to find a thread on the subject but didn't pick one up when I scanned the titles. Thanks for the direction. I guess my proposal is that individuals learn about the process and begin creating success stories by applying it themselves. The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins is available online.
Lime in outhouses serves to dessicate and preserve the fecal matter. What I am doing is cultivating a community of microorganisms that decompose them very rapidly. Feces become a problem when they are concentrated and preserving them pospones decomposition and intensifies concentration.

robbidobbs · Post by **robbidobbs** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 4:52 pm

beautytoo wrote:I was hoping to find a thread on the subject but didn't pick one up when I scanned the titles. Thanks for the direction. I guess my proposal is that individuals learn about the process and begin creating success stories by applying it themselves. Lime in outhouses serves to dessicate and preserve the fecal matter.

Every time a shit-storage thread comes up here, I redirect it to the pottie list, so it is pounded out by those who are into this shit (pun intended). The list is quiet now, so you're welcome to jump start the discussion again with your ideas. The pottie-list is the ideal forum for "shitty" ideas.

Usually, this kind of pie-in-the sky shit storage discussion is so much blah-blah, and dies quickly. I encourage interested parties to write a REAL proposal, after playa-life feasiblity is first determined by Burners on said list.

BTW: I strongly discourage anyone going out there to fuck around with shit, unless they've already discussed their plans with the Health Dept.. And yes, I know about the wonders of lime...from the Rainbow Gathering. And no, we can't dig shit trenches in the Playa.

Christ! Just use the fucking porta-potties, you paid for them already. Our sewage is now fertilizing non-edible garlic to be used to scent propane. Yes, your shit is protecting lives.

Ivy · Post by **Ivy** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 5:20 pm

non-edible garlic to be used to scent propane

Is this by chance the garlic I was given at the gate? I'd sure like to know before I use it... : )

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 7:01 pm

robbidobbs wrote: Christ! Just use the fucking porta-potties, you paid for them already. Our sewage is now fertilizing non-edible garlic to be used to scent propane. Yes, your shit is protecting lives.

I suppose that is what makes "the tourists" that arrive on Friday such a double-edged sword for me. Yeah, they change the nature of the place a bit ... but they also pay for a whole week's worth of potty use and only stay a couple of days. So I look at them as sort of subsidising the rest of us.

DangerMouse · Post by **DangerMouse** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 8:40 pm

I don't know... I really felt the whole mood of the playa really shift on Thursday after the dust settled... (Pun intended.)

Of course that was also the point at which the techno camp on wheels across the street from me finally made its DMV approval and headed out. Nice guys, but damn that thing was loud.

beautytoo · Post by **beautytoo** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 8:42 pm

BTW: I strongly discourage anyone going out there to fuck around with shit, unless they've already discussed their plans with the Health Dept.
Our sewage is now fertilizing non-edible garlic to be used to scent propane.

It’s great that the PP product is being used for something positive. Is it being applied directly to the crop or being composted first?
“Fucking with shit”, as you put it, should certainly not be taken lightly. It can be a health hazard and the Health Department, who concern themselves greatly with shit, has legal clout that we would be unwise to ignore. The second of these two points is the more salient, since the concerns of the first can be addressed with common sense and personal responsibility. The Health department is an institution that’s rationale for existence is the cynical notion that human beings are incapable of surviving without authoritarian oversight. I have come to embrace the fact that I am a person who has a problem with authority. That being the case, the notion of authoritarian human oversight gives me the shakes. I don’t believe that human beings are inherently incapable, only that they are being systematically made to believe that they are. I stopped using precious drinking water to flush my feces into the ground water about a year ago, without consulting the Health Department. I instead use it to nourish a community of organisms that convert the feces to a fine humus that I use to fertilize vegetables that I grow myself as an alternative to supporting an agricultural/industrial complex that is gutting the planet. At Burning Man 2004 I collected the feces from two good sized villages, the inhabitants of which enjoyed the opportunity to avoid the discomfort of public shitters and relish the satisfaction of being accountable to a slightly deeper level. I’m not suggesting that it is for everyone. I am suggesting that anyone who is pretty sure that they can behave with enough wit and independence to pull it off, should consider it an option.

beautytoo · Post by **beautytoo** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 8:56 pm

BTW: I strongly discourage anyone going out there to fuck around with shit, unless they've already discussed their plans with the Health Dept.
Our sewage is now fertilizing non-edible garlic to be used to scent propane.

BTW: I strongly discourage anyone going out there to fuck around with shit, unless they've already discussed their plans with the Health Dept.. And yes, I know about the wonders of lime...from the Rainbow Gathering. And no, we can't dig shit trenches in the Playa.

Christ! Just use the fucking porta-potties, you paid for them already. Our sewage is now fertilizing non-edible garlic to be used to scent propane. Yes, your shit is protecting lives.

robbidobbs · Post by **robbidobbs** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 11:24 am

Is there an echo in here?

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 12:40 pm

Great, I suppose the next step is to suggest "living machines."

robbidobbs · Post by **robbidobbs** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 6:36 pm

Way.

Self Reliance & Shit

Self Reliance & Shit

Better control in this version