Hacker News Reader

Comment by clock_tower | Hacker News Reader

Following _1491_: home to millions of people, the jungle mostly consisting of fruit-bearing trees (the modern Amazonian tribes are living in overgrown orchards), and in possession of miraculous sanitation/fertilizer technology.

Everyone should know about terra preta. It turns out it wasn't a soil-enrichment technique, it was sanitation with a side effect of soil enrichment -- and could be very applicable in the developing world (and the developed world!) today. An experiment in Germany -- look up the paper "Terra Preta Sanitation" -- showed that a slightly modified method of terra-preta production can sanitize human waste to well within First World standards.

View on HN

Terra preta is formed naturally by falling fruits, leaves and branches that get composted on the soil. There's a agriculture method called agroforestry that make use of this concept, it's very promising for organic farms: https://vimeo.com/146953911

I know a couple of people here who have "dry bathrooms" (or banheiro seco) that is just a bucket to collect the poo, when you poo you cover it with dry leaves or grinded wood (they are the source of carbon, and stop the bad smell), when the bucket fills up they take it to an area outside far from the house where it will compost, naturally kill the pathogens (because of the heat it produces) and became terra-preta, much better solution than to send it down stream, easier to decentralize and the end result is the best product you could have.

Great video. Very much in line with Allan Savory's plan to reverse climate change: https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_worl....

Instead of planting trees and pruning he uses rotating herds of animals. Both techniques respect nature and revitalize soil compared to conventional industrial farming practices. I don't understand why there aren't more startups in this space. Climate change is a worthwhile problem to tackle.

The Humanure Handbook (http://humanurehandbook.com/) goes into the specifics of how to build sawdust toilets and manage waste and compost safely. For those even remotely interested, the e-book is only USD$10, and earlier editions are free for the downloading.

If you know someone who lives in the country and is interested in off-the-grid living, or is merely serious about gardening, a copy would make for an unusual gift.

I've read this book and strongly recommend it. The subject matter is not the easiest to write about but the author really does a great job, approaching it in an educative and interesting way. He also clearly demonstrates that this is something important to our civilization as a whole and that ignoring it because it is uncomfortable is a mistake.

For anyone who hasn't read it, do yourselves a favour: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302... that's the original cover story for The Atlantic. Few longforms have hit me as hard as this one did.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com