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Night soil must be mixed with material that is high in cellulose or carbon in order to compost effectively and efficiently.
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In MOTHER NO. 21 Edith Little asked for information about
using yeast in a privy to decompose and deodorize feces or
"night soil". I don't know of any yeast that will serve
this purpose, but I do know that human manure can be
composted very nicely. There will be little objectionable
odor ... much less than from the average privy where waste
is allowed to pile up and putrefy, creating unhealthy
conditions. Flies will also be eliminated and the resulting
fertilizer will be of very high quality: an odorless,
crumbly black gold for the garden.
In order to compost effectively and efficiently, night soil
must be mixed with material that is high in cellulose or
carbon. I find that sawdust, wood chips, pine needles or
old leaves—in a ratio of four or five parts sawdust
or whatever to one part excrement by volume—seem to
work best. Straw or hay isn't satisfactory, for it tends to
pack down and is difficult to turn over later on.
The sawdust should be dumped down the hole of the privy
after each use to completely cover your latest "gift to the
earth". Use more if necessary, to insure that flies cannot
get down into the night soil to lay their eggs. The mixture
should be kept damp but not sopping wet.
After a period of time, as the pile builds up in volume, it
will begin to heat. At this point the material should be
turned over with a long-handled pitchfork every two or
three days, depending on how much the privy is used. This
will keep the pile cookin' by supplying air to the aerobic
bacteria responsible for the composting process ... and
will also insure that any stray fly larvae on the surface
of the mass get dug into the hot center and destroyed.
The heat is caused by the work of beneficial microorganisms
which break down the night soil-sawdust mixture. If
conditions we right, the temperature will be high enough
(at least 150° F for about 24 hours) to render the
compost completely free of any diseasecausing bacteria. As
an added safeguard, I would not use the fertilizer on
plants that will be eaten raw until the dressing has aged
for at least one year.
It would be advantageous if the privy were designed to
allow easy access to the composting chamber for turning and
removal of the contents. The facility could be as simple as
a tarp strung over a three-foot-deep pit in the ground ...
all that's needed is something to keep the pile from
getting too wet.
