Full Circle Associates

There have been many voices who are looking to understand how the post-tsunami relief efforts can be a chance to create positive change for the affected community. Rife in this idea is the challenge of knowing what is positive and to whom. How local communities can voice what is right for them.

How many meal time conversations have been brewing in homes and communities miles away, wanting to be a positive source of ideas and energy. How do these ideas surface and find fertile ground? I don't know. But I figure blogging some ideas is one way as a blog post can have an amazing power to connect to a network. So I share some ideas from my friend Larry Warnberg, a steward of the earth if there ever was one. Larry's passion is toilets - toilets that save precious water and steward the ground. He and his partner, Sandy Bradley, are role modeling sustainable living and gardening practices on Washington State's Long Beach Penninsula on Willapa Bay.

Here is what Larry emailed me (posted with permission). Larry has been contacting relief agencies to offer his expertise with solar composting toilets:

Hi Nancy:

Thanks for your help with networking. The only response so far to dozens of inquiries has come from Scott Mantz at Care to Help. But, hey, it's a start.

I shouldn't be surprised by the lack of interest in composting toilets among NGO's. Among the few Emergency Sanitation programs I've discovered so far it is apparent that the agenda is set by the pipes-pumps-tanks promoters, sponsored by Engineers and suppliers, supported by the IMF and World Bank. The Hudson Enterprise Institute has media watchdogs patrolling for incursions on their turf, promptly ridiculing any barbarian who foolishly suggests a regression to primitive unsanitary fecal disposal. They nailed me twice.

Corporate control of sanitation development projects is nearly complete. From what I read in some groups, much of the US aid money will go to pre-selected products and services. I struggle with how composting toilets might eventually get on the purchase list (assuming I could even get a foot in the heavily guarded door), since there is no need to sell anything. I see it more as an educational process, a packet of learning on not fouling one's nest, saving water, preventing pollution and disease, and returning valuable nutrients to the soil. A bucket is cheap and readiliy available, but the ancient wisdom is not widely accessible. Can it be packaged? The Humanure Handbook is available in several languages, a valuable resource and guide for many. But it is just a drop in the bucket compared to the overwhelming need for better sanitary facilities not only for tsunami survivors, but wherever sewage-borne disease is a problem.

Persistently, Larry

The interior of one of Larry's latest solar composting toilets - complete with a sink.

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