http://www.fsr.com/national/oregon/business/scatpack/xindex.html has information on one product available. Couldn't find the original posting....

-- Karen Cook (browsercat@hotmail.com), October 13, 1998

Answers

Here's a fine URL on the subject. Funny graphic; aesthetic and practical solution!

http://www.kauai.net/humanure/humanure.html

-- Faith Weaver (faith-weaver@usa.net), October 13, 1998.

And they said this discussion couldn't get any lower....or is Art Bell getting any higher?

Ya' gotta do, ya' gotta get rid of it, do it wrong you get sick and smell up the joint.... but doesn't it feel wierd posting URL's about manure on high tech machines over a world wide internet site linking millions of users worldwide?

Of course, the problem is caused by the manure inside the high tech machines in millions of sites affecting millions of users worldwide....maybe it is appropriate after all. 8<)

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), October 14, 1998.

Thought I'd bury it in my compost heap. Cheaper than a composting toilet. But eeeewwww!

-- Ohiomom (ina@tizzy.com), October 14, 1998.

Ironically, if TSHTF (pun intended) and there's no electric, this particular issue will be much more important than any of us can probably imagine at this point...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), October 14, 1998.

Tsk, Tsk, Tsk why must you all be so wasteful? (pun intended) The best possible method for getting rid of human and animal waste is to process it through a simple anerobic digestor system which uses natural bacterial action to sterilize (from human diseases and parasites) the concentrated waste by biological action and both releases usable natural gas and enhances the fertilizing value of the manure by increasing the available nitrogen to about 12%. How? Just mix a lot of the stuff with water and some plant wastes (leaves or cuttings) until its about as thick as heavy cream (yuchh). Do this in a barrel or tank. For two days the mess will give off CO2. After two days it will give off about 80% pure methane (natural gas) at a high rate for about a month, and a lessor rate for another 6 weeks or so. Total gas emitted will be about a cubic foot of 450 to 500 BTU/cuft gas per pound of waste, and the weight of the slurry is about 150 lbs per cubic foot. If you have a 1000 cubic foot tank, and have that much crap to get rid of, then you can get about a million and a half btus out of it per day the first 30 days after filling, and a couple of hundred thousand BTUs each day for the next month or six weeks. That is a rather large amount of gas - hog farmers and such have used such systems on and off for years. Just checked the figures at Iowa State University - they use a much higher BTU release figure than mine - mine is given from folks using simple equipment and practical experience. There are a lot of methods to increase the speed of the digestion - a transparent window and a 'bubble tube' to cause mixing are a couple of common methods. If you are farming, or can get together with a bunch of like minded folks, you can generate quite a lot of gas useful for either heat and lighting directly, or for generating electricity. (Natural gas carburators are not at all hard to find)

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), October 14, 1998.