Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Using salt water for the toilets has the drawback of requiring extra plumbing. And perhaps then having to have extra plumbing on the waste end as well since flushing salt water into a septic system might have negative impact on the salt levels in the ground around the leach field as well as the ground water. I know of places that use the purified waste water to inject it into the ground to help hold back salt water intrusion into the aquifers. I don't think you would want to use salt water for this purpose.

Everyone should also remember that the currently devised that wastewater treatment uses, essentially does release the "treated wastewater" back into the water supplies. Like a septic system leach field, leaches the wastewater back into the ground water and "hopes" that the travel through the ground and dilution in the aquifer is enough to make it OK. Sewage plants do stuff like add chlorine to kill pathogens (by the way, it doesn't work on everything since roundworm eggs usually survive) The settle it and separate the solids and hopefully run it through some constructed wetlands but often, they just dump it back into the water supplies. So, do you really feel better about using the flusher rater than re-using your own "waste."
Humanure Handbook Online
I'd personally like to keep other people from contaminating my "waste" with chemicals and I'd like to make sure it is properly composted to take care of pathogens and so as not to contaminate my drinking water with nitrates. Oh, and by not having to flush the toilet several times a day, we save lots of water compared to a regular household. Sorry, that was my anti fecophobia rant, got that out of the way.

"Organic". The points about human urine not really being appropriate for "organic" growing is understood because it is difficult to be certain a person doesn't take any "inorganic medications". My personal view here is that, well if you are willing to ingest it in the first place, should it really worry you on return visits? Now I do understand that certain things can build up in particular types of plants and fish so some care should be taken. Also, anyone on very toxic medical treatments should probably not contribute to such a system (like cancer patients on chemo.)

i smell a western medicine war coming on

TCL, i'm unsure of the rest of the worlds (even the rest of oz) way of disposing of treated waste water. where i live i'm fairly sure its pumpwed back into the ocean (i'm going to look like a right fool if its not )

I hear ya on the cost and infrastructure, but my point is that when a gov can spend 2b on industrial reform and god knows how much on a desalinisation plant then surely a little out of the square thinking is in order

just as another tangent is is england where the local water way has enough estrogen to make you cry due to the amount that getting flushed?

oh If any new member is foolish enough to associate a single thread on peeponics with aquaponics in general then theres probably not much hope for them

composting toilets in general seem like a great idea to me. But the general population likes their out of sight out of mind philosophy

I have to tell you that the peeponics theory is not something I have tried or would even w=ant to see used beyond possibly fishless cycling. you may want to eat your own vegetables produced with your own wastes, but please don't invite ME for lunch. I will bring a pizza.

Mose of melbournes western water goes to werribee sewrage farm theres 4000 acres with cattle supplying a lot of melbs meat sunburys waste water is pumped as far as rockbank to all the vinyards there[so if you think rockbank wine tasts like s;;' it is] the rest goes to all the sporting fields from sunbury to melton[ interesting since the drout and everybody has put in waste water systems they cant get enough water to supply there needs

Yes but those are hardly closed systems. There is a lot more going on with the wastes in that scenario than in a closed loop system such as is used in AP.

Hey DT, do you have specific concerns or is it just an overall icky feeling about it? How is raising plants using sterile human urine less safe than spreading cow manure over fields as they do every year? The smell from the fields that have cow pee applied to them I drive past will knock you down at certain times of the year. I'm not even sure that it isn't human waste that they are putting on some of them, it's becoming common practice to apply sludge from sewage treatment on fields.

Pee cabbage:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 093608.htm

Hum, I'm not quite sure how to take that one. The reason for the association with aquaponics would be due to the use of the same type of nitrogen cycle to make use of a "waste" product to grow plants. It doesn't really work as strict hydroponics since that favors killing off any possible bacteria.

Ah, yes the new subject (I mean member), but one willing to run the experiment and report the results. As to the ick factor in urine, well I've already use liquid gold as a fertilizer on the soil/compost garden so unless I notice strong odors from the ponics system, I don't see it as any ickier.

No worries, I won't be having forced veggie eating parties at my house, actually there really isn't space here for parties at least inside the house.

Yes, saddly, most people are more comfortable with the current "flush it away" methods. Bad part is, there really isn't an away. When you send it away, it's a pollutant that causes problems. If you think of it as a resource then we all win. In the not so distant future people may need to rethink their flushing ways as clean drinking water may be come more precious than oil.

For me, the worrying factor is eating the fish, not the vegies...not having read the whole thread, are you thinking about a system without fish?

If so, the equation is different because there are no solids...

As I said before, an open field is hardly a closed loop as we have in AP. And I suppose you may be right, it is a general icky feeling. I live in a third world country, I try too teach people to not pee on their food and poop in their water

Looks like quite a sticky topic this , i have to say that i agree with DT i wouldnt use it long term ( though i regularly water the lime tree)

and with the RO waste water thing roughly 1/3 of the water that passes through an RO is kept as good water the other 2/3 is waste ( quite a big drawback for teh technollogy ) though this can differ from system to system and depends on many variables

i know for a fact that Royal perth hospital manage to get 100% usage of their RO water but using the waste exclusively to flush the toliets in the whole of the main building, however its by fluke rather than design as they already had the tank setup they just altered the input piping

i say good luck to anyone willing to try new things but i doubt it will take off

Cheers

I would have a concern about unwanted chemicals (including drugs, food additives, and other items in our fake food zoo, as well as their breakdown products) building up, bioaccumulating in meat and veg, then getting back to me. This is not just a worry with introduced animal/human waste products, I worry about fish food chemistry too. Same goes for natural water chemicals: I know of a town a few hundred miles away with high arsenic in the city water supply: concentrate that by adding water to your system a while and letting it evaporate. Same for selenium (a major cause of defects in water birds in some areas of California). Human urine or even manure, properly handled/treated, should be fine for food crops if (BIG if) problematic organisms are removed and the chemistry is clean.

Just saying that I understand people's concerns, but think that it may be off-target to concentrate on human manure.

That's intellect speaking, my guts are more sqeamish. I expect that comes from millennia of evolution where critters/folks who ate near their manure tended to gain heavy parasite loads.

TCL, don't take it the wrong way

was tongue in cheek regarding the "well if you are willing to ingest it in the first place, should it really worry you on return visits?"

i agree.

I avoid pharmaceuticals whenever possible.

Regarding the latter of my comments i was referring to someone worrying that some one reading about pee might assosicate AP as a whole with this. Was trying to say that if they are shortsighted enough to draw that conclusion......................not detracting from your idea

i find it interesting to see this discussion. and its good to see people openly acknowledging that it might be more of an emotive "yuk" thing than a scientific thing.

I'm not worrying, Steve. Just trying to point out a very tender public perception in this community on the Darling Downs

People are a funny lot here...

But that could be said of communities everywhere!!!

Perceptions are often not based in logic or rational thinking. Rather, emotions often are disguised as points of view. If I was to publicly state here that ap practitioners used human urine to 'seed the system', or 'fertilise' or 'maintain the system' (however you want to put it), there would be a negative value placed against the ap reputation. This may not negate all the benefits, but would turn some off, perhaps to the point of complaint to the local council...who knows?
The debate on whether to recycle human waste into the public water supply resulted in some pretty weird opinions being expressed, by some pretty prominent members of the peerage. And a LOT of very emotive and unpleasant shouting.

I just wanted to raise two issues for consideration
1. Watch out for contaminants in urine...remember this is a closed system and contaminants have a high influence and
2. Beware of public perceptions and opinions...we want good stories in the media, not distortion and fearmongering (such as occurred here in Toowoomba)

Personally, my wife would not eat things grown on my waters. End of debate for me...but if it rocks your boat...rock on

I will ask you this... where do you you get YOUR drinking water? Where does your food come from?

What ever you consume is in your waste, that waste is then accumulating into your soils. You can't fight these chemicals that are everywhere. I would rather risk a very slow heavy metals buildup than a disease contracted through improper waste disposal.

snag, wasn't disagreeing mate infact you're right.

if i ever slashed in a system i wouldnt advertise it for the same reason.

was just highlighting and agreeing with the fact that some people can be short sighted