Night soil
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225381475
2008-07-13T11:22:52Z
195.156.214.1
/* China */
'''Night soil''' is a [[euphemism]] for human feces. "Night soil" is produced as a result of a [[waste management]] system in areas without community [[infrastructure]] such as a [[sewage system|sewage treatment facility]], or individual [[septic tank|septic disposal]]. In this system of waste management, the [[human feces]] are collected in solid form.
==Waste management==
===Collection===
Feces are excreted into a container or bucket, and are sometimes collected in the container with [[urine]] and other waste. Often the deposition or excretion occurs within the residence, such as in a [[shophouse]] faced with overpopulation. This system is used in isolated rural areas and is important in [[developing nation]]s or in areas that lack the adequate [[infrastructure]] to have [[running water]]. The material is collected for temporary storage and is disposed of depending on local custom.
===Disposal===
Disposal has varied through time. In urban areas, usually [[slum]]s, a night soil collector will arrive regularly, at varying time periods depending on the [[supply and demand]] for night soil collection. Usually this occurs during the night, giving the night soil its name.
In isolated rural areas such as in [[farm]]s, the [[household]] will usually dispose of the night soil themselves, but this practice is generally not referred to as night soil, though the eventual fate of the night soil, and style of handling, is similar.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
After arriving at a collection point, usually as a special treatment center within the city, or perhaps an open [[cesspit]], methods of dealing with the waste vary. The waste may go on being shipped to another larger center to be ultimately taken care of, or be disposed of at that particular juncture.
==Sanitation issues==
Without proper treatment, the use of human feces as fertilizer is a hazardous practice because of [[disease]]-causing [[microbe]]s they contain. Nevertheless, in developing nations it is a common practice. [[Parasitic worm]] infections, such as [[Ascariasis]] in these countries are linked to night soil, since the [[larva]]e are in feces. There have also been cases of disease-carrying [[tomato]]es, [[lettuce]], and other [[vegetable]]s being imported from undeveloped nations into more developed nations.{{Fact|date=June 2008}}
Human waste may be attractive as [[fertilizer]] because of the high demand for fertilizer and the relative availability of the material to create night soil. In areas where native soil is of poor quality, the local population may weigh the risk of using night soil.
The safe reduction of human waste into compost is possible. Many municipalities create [[compost]] from the city sewage system, but then recommend that it only be used on flower beds, not vegetable gardens. Some claims have been made that this is dangerous or inappropriate without the expensive removal of [[heavy metals]]. There are other simple yet effective ways to process the compost into safe and usable material. One method, that has been successful, is known as "[[humanure]]" where the material is piled in a compost heap with kitchen refuse and high-carbon materials such as yard waste, heated through biological activity and kept for an optimal period of time whereby the pathogens are destroyed. Many people in the United States and other countries have been practicing this method for over ten years now without any negative consequences.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}
==Historical examples==
===China ===
The term is known, or even infamous among the generations that were born in parts of [[China]] or [[Chinatowns]] (depending on the development of the infrastructure) before 1960. Post-[[World War II]] [[Chinatown, Singapore]] before the [[history of Singapore|independence of Singapore]] utilized night soil collection as a primary means of waste disposal, especially as much of the infrastructure was damaged and took a long time to rebuild following the [[Battle of Singapore]] and subsequent [[Japanese Occupation of Singapore]]. Following the development of the economy and the [[standard of living]] after independence, the night soil system in Singapore is now merely a curious anecdote from the time of colonial rule when new systems developed. This system is now obsolete in virtually all provinces in [[China]].
The collection method is generally very manual and heavily relies on close human contact with the waste. During the Nationalist era when the [[Kuomintang]] ruled [[mainland China]], as well as Chinatown in Singapore, the night soil collector usually arrived with spare and relatively empty [[honey bucket]]s to exchange for the full honey buckets. The method of transporting the honey buckets from individual households to collection centers was very similar to delivering [[water supply|water supplies]] by an unskilled laborer, with the exception that the item being transported was not at all [[drinking water|potable]] and it was being delivered ''from'' the household, rather than ''to'' the household. The collector would hang full honey buckets onto each end of a pole he carried on his shoulder and then proceeded to carry it through the streets until he reached the collection point. This was an unpleasant occupation and was predominately done by [[manual labor]]ers.
===Tudor Britain===
A [[gong farmer]] was the term used in Tudor Britain for a person employed to remove human excrement from privies and cesspits. Gong farmers were only allowed to work at night and the waste they collected had to be taken outside the city or town boundaries.
===India===
India's caste system assigns [[Dalit|untouchables]] with the disposal of night soil. This "[[manual scavenging]]" is now illegal in most Indian states, although the practice undoubtedly continues in many rural areas.<ref name="frontline06">{{cite web|url=http://www.flonnet.com/fl2318/stories/20060922005900400.htm|title= Manual scavenging is still a disgusting reality in most States despite an Act of Parliament banning it, ''Frontline'', Volume 23, Issue 18|format=html|date=2006|author= Zaidi Annie |accessdate=2007-05-07}}</ref>
===Japan===
The reuse of [[Human feces|feces]] as fertilizer was common in Japan. Waste products of rich people were sold at higher prices because their diet was better. Various historic documents{{Fact|date=July 2008}} dating from the [[9th century]] detail the disposal procedures for toilet waste.
Selling human waste products as fertilizers became much less common after [[World War II]], both for sanitary reasons and because of the proliferation of chemical fertilizers, and less than 1% is used for night soil fertilization.<ref name="emecs99">{{cite web|url=http://www.emecs.or.jp/joint4/joint-pdf/pdf/p121.pdf|title=Pollutant Load Analysis for the Environmental Management of Enclosed Sea in Japan|format=PDF|date=1999|pages=122|author=Masao Ukita and Hiroshi Nakanishi|accessdate=2006-10-30}}</ref>
The proper disposal or [[recycling]] of sewage remains an important research area that is highly political.
== See also ==
*[[Humanure]]
*[[Composting toilet]]
*[[Ecological sanitation]]
*[[Greywater]]
*[[Slopping out]]
*[[Sewage treatment]]
*[[Jenkem]]
==References==
<references/>
==External links==
*[http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/Autumn02/necessary.cfm Necessary and Sufficient - Night soil in colonial America]
*[http://pcdv1.pcd.go.th/Information/Regulations/Engp4garbag.htm Thailand - Pollution from Solid waste and Night Soil]
*{{cite web|url=http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/4955/|title=feedback on NIGHT SOIL|work=[[Mother Earth News]]|year=1973}}
*{{cite book|url=http://www.fordfound.org/elibrary/documents/0338/046.cfm|title=Energy and Agriculture in the Third World: A Report to the Energy Policy Project of the Ford Foundation|author=Arjun Makhijani and Alan Poole|chapterurl=http://www.fordfound.org/elibrary/documents/0338/toc.cfm|chapter=Vignettes of Third World Agriculture}}
*{{cite web|url=http://www.cgfi.org/materials/articles/2002/may_22_02.htm|title= Why Not A Declaration for Sustainable Farming And Forestry?|author=Dennis T. Avery|work=[[Center for Global Food Issues]]}}
*{{cite web|url=http://www.pcpafg.org/appeal/appeal1999/compendium_of_project_proposals/sub_provision/sub_folders/wat3_brr.htm|title=Establishment of Small Scale Business Through Night Soil in Kabul}}
{{waste}}
[[Category:Environmental soil science]]
[[Category:Composting]]