OPINION

Your Most Important Demonstration Project: Ecological Engineering Starts at Home

We are all effluent producers, and that fact highlights an imperative for ecological engineers: The first ecological system we design, engineer or install should be our own.

Many ecological systems advocates note that they live in city apartments or homes served by sewers. Or, they point out that local municipal approvals would be difficult to obtain. These are akin to the same obstacles that clients must manage. Why don't we? Are these systems for other people, not us?

By demonstrating these systems, we show our neighbors that they work. We expand the public's perception of what is possible. We learn more about these systems and how to adjust and improve them. And we show that we truly know--and believe in--ecological systems.

This does not mean that you should rip out all of your flush toilets and install an expensive recirculating zero-discharge system in your 50-unit apartment building. If you can't install a complete system, start with the easy steps (in order of progression):

* Collect and use graywater as much as possible. If you do not want to tinker with your plumbing, simply place a collecting bucket in the shower, kitchen sink or in utility sinks. Pour this graywater on your plants. Avoid draining toxics into these buckets. Be conscious of the cleaners you use--try to use potassium-based soaps over sodium-based soaps as much as possible. Your plants will appreciate this. I find that large planters of bamboo, hibiscus, ginger, calla lilly and other tropical houseplants drink this up.

* Start "going the distance" in your nutrient utilization efforts. Consider collecting urine either by creating a urinal tank from a recycled plastic container (I used a gas/petrol jug fitted with a short flexible pipe topped with a large funnel) or by installing a urine-diverting toilet. You can pour small amounts of diluted urine on well-drained plants in somewhat aerated soils. (I have even collected urine with a large cup, when experimenting with this.) This seems to work best for outdoor planters than for indoor planters, in which salt can build up. Peter Harper of CAT collected it in a "pee can" and poured it on bales of hay, which rapidly composted (now he has a urine-diverting toilet and combines urine and graywater to irrigate gardens). Bill Warner of Jordforsk made a small urine composter and placed it outside under the eaves of a garden shed.

* More advanced: Build a small wetland system or Wastewater Garden planter system that serves just one sink or appliance. In one ecological engineer's home (David Del Porto), served by a sewer, a lined and aerated planter bed manages water from the clothes-washing machine. A utility sink drains to a filter then to a series of ponds, from which water is drawn through a drip-irrigation system to water tropical plants, small fruit trees and tomatoes in a solar greenhouse (glasshouse). John Todd has a Living Machine system in his cellar.

* Consider a graywater-only or blackwater-only system. To divert and utilize blackwater, consider installing a composting toilet that serves at least one of the toilet rooms in your home. In most places, one can use a self-made composting toilet, as long as a conventional system is also in place.

Make your system or solution attractive and perhaps accessible or visible to visitors. Tell people about it. Make it public health-friendly (don't alienate your local health agents).

The challenge of convincing decisionmakers and the public that ecological is the way to go is to prove that it is 1) feasible, 2) effective 3) ultimately cost-saving, and 4) presentable, and improves the quality of life. Make sure you can tell this story in the first person.

Start meeting this challenge as locally as you can: at home.