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Composting yourself
Mar. 15th, 2010 04:36 pmAs a general rule of thumb, if it was ever alive, you can compost it. This includes yourself. I thought I'd share a few ways to do this.
The most obvious first: hair and nails. Your hair and nails will compost. They'd be quite slow to compost, but it's good to have some slower composting substances in your heap to keep it going. Anyway, the hair in your hairbrush and your nail clippings can get chucked into the compost.
Less widely known is that a large proportion of the contents of your vacuum cleaner are in fact you. A lot of it is your hair and your dead skin. The rest is likely to be pet hair and skin, crumbs and the odd bit of inorganic dirt which won't do your heap any harm. Unless you know there's something a bit nasty in the vacuum cleaner (for example if you've recently shampooed the carpets) you can out that on the heap.
Used tissues are a bit controversial. The issue is that unless you are a super accomplished hot composter the heap won't get the temperature required to sterilise the tissues. Now, this is a problem if you've had a bout of Ebola, on the other hand, if you're sniffling due to allergies, your tissues aren't more of a biohazard than other stuff that can go on the heap.
Number ones are a hushedly spoken of composting secret sometimes referred to as "homemade compost activator" or "liquid gold". Human urine is high in nitrogen making it a really effective compost activator. Putting urine on the compost can also reduce your water use because peeing on the compost heap means that you don't need to flush the toilet as much. In fact, the National Trust have encouraged their male gardeners to urinate on "pee bails" to save water. A lot of people claim that men's urine is better than women's urine, but as far as I can tell that's just an old wives' tale. The reason men's urine finds its way onto compost heaps more than women's urine is more due to relative difficulties with the logistics of application. I got around this by cutting an empty tonic water bottle in half. The top half will be a cloche and the bottom half can be used to transport homemade (in my kidneys that is) compost activator from the downstairs lavatory to the compost heap. Urine can also be used diluted as a liquid fertiliser. A Finnish study found that fertilising tomatoes with urine and wood ash could quadruple their output.
After that we move onto the substances which you need a bit more commitment to do.
I don't know much about composting number twos I don't think I'm going to be able to win Alec around to the idea. Humanure is the term used by people in the know, and with the right system, which composts at a high enough heat, it can produce safe compost which can be used on food crops.
Sadly at the moment, once your soul has gone to the world to come, in the UK it's not legal for your body to go on the heap. I think that this is a pity. Burying bodies means that they anaerobically decompose, producing more harmful methane than composting would. I think you could sell a system whereby each body was composted in it's own composter (possibly along with the flowers from the funeral) and a year or so later the relatives were presented with a sack of compost and possibly some bonemeal to use as they see fit. It wouldn't be for everyone, but I think that some deep greenies would love it.
The most obvious first: hair and nails. Your hair and nails will compost. They'd be quite slow to compost, but it's good to have some slower composting substances in your heap to keep it going. Anyway, the hair in your hairbrush and your nail clippings can get chucked into the compost.
Less widely known is that a large proportion of the contents of your vacuum cleaner are in fact you. A lot of it is your hair and your dead skin. The rest is likely to be pet hair and skin, crumbs and the odd bit of inorganic dirt which won't do your heap any harm. Unless you know there's something a bit nasty in the vacuum cleaner (for example if you've recently shampooed the carpets) you can out that on the heap.
Used tissues are a bit controversial. The issue is that unless you are a super accomplished hot composter the heap won't get the temperature required to sterilise the tissues. Now, this is a problem if you've had a bout of Ebola, on the other hand, if you're sniffling due to allergies, your tissues aren't more of a biohazard than other stuff that can go on the heap.
Number ones are a hushedly spoken of composting secret sometimes referred to as "homemade compost activator" or "liquid gold". Human urine is high in nitrogen making it a really effective compost activator. Putting urine on the compost can also reduce your water use because peeing on the compost heap means that you don't need to flush the toilet as much. In fact, the National Trust have encouraged their male gardeners to urinate on "pee bails" to save water. A lot of people claim that men's urine is better than women's urine, but as far as I can tell that's just an old wives' tale. The reason men's urine finds its way onto compost heaps more than women's urine is more due to relative difficulties with the logistics of application. I got around this by cutting an empty tonic water bottle in half. The top half will be a cloche and the bottom half can be used to transport homemade (in my kidneys that is) compost activator from the downstairs lavatory to the compost heap. Urine can also be used diluted as a liquid fertiliser. A Finnish study found that fertilising tomatoes with urine and wood ash could quadruple their output.
After that we move onto the substances which you need a bit more commitment to do.
I don't know much about composting number twos I don't think I'm going to be able to win Alec around to the idea. Humanure is the term used by people in the know, and with the right system, which composts at a high enough heat, it can produce safe compost which can be used on food crops.
Sadly at the moment, once your soul has gone to the world to come, in the UK it's not legal for your body to go on the heap. I think that this is a pity. Burying bodies means that they anaerobically decompose, producing more harmful methane than composting would. I think you could sell a system whereby each body was composted in it's own composter (possibly along with the flowers from the funeral) and a year or so later the relatives were presented with a sack of compost and possibly some bonemeal to use as they see fit. It wouldn't be for everyone, but I think that some deep greenies would love it.