The New York Times covers Ecological Sanitation

Forwarded to the Portal by: Vishwanath Srikantaiah
Image and Content Courtesy: New York Times

Yellow Is the New Green

In an Op Ed column Rose George writes candidly of the Ecosan toilet encountered in the far reaches of China. From the provincial reach of the technology to the global ramifications of the same the article takes a hard look at the yellow that will soon be the watchword for green around the world!

IN the far reaches of Shaanxi Province in northern China, in an apple-producing village named Ganquanfang, I recently visited a house belonging to two cheery primary-school teachers, Zhang Min Shu and his wife, Wu Zhaoxian. Their house wasn't exceptional — a spacious yard, several rooms — except for the bathroom. There, up a few steps on a tiled platform, sat a toilet unlike any I'd seen. Its pan was divided in two: solid waste went in the back, and the front compartment collected urine. The liquids and solids can, after a decent period of storage and composting, be applied to the fields as pathogen-free, expense-free fertilizer.

Read the entire article here: Yellow is the New Green