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Old 07-25-2017, 11:08 PM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
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Quote:
Originally Posted by luke strawwalker
I don't get it...

I mean, being from a rural background, I'm quite familiar with the concept of answering "nature's call" out in the open...

It was common practice in most areas to have a "privy" or outhouse even up until about the 1940's or 50's... no great technology is needed, just build a portable wooden shed on runners, dig a hole about four feet deep, take a dump in it til it's full, then dig another hole a few feet away and cover the old one over with the dirt removed once you move the shed over the new hole. No "digging it out" or other handling of the crap... it rots down naturally under the ground... most of it's rotted by the time you cover it up. The same area CAN be used again over time, you just have to "rotate" where you put the thing and give everything time to break down and the soil to settle (a few years) before moving over that spot again.

Now, in built up areas (cities) the problems of disposal of human waste is much more difficult-- it was common practice in even the most cosmopolitan European and US cities, even during the 18th and early 19th centuries, to simply dump one's "chamber pot" out an open window into the street or gutter below. That's one reason why so many "well to do" people had "country estates" in which to live during summertime, when the warmth made the cities stifling and the stench unbearable, compared to winter. At any rate, even the ancient Romans (and some other civilizations) had working public sewers that provided places to relieve oneself and dispose of the household's bodily waste without having to "dump it in the street"...

If her numbers are true, then it seems to me to be much more of a cultural problem than any real lack of technology or capability... it's perfectly acceptable to squat just anywhere and let fly, so why go to any more difficulty than that... Just very backward to me...

Later! OL J R
That point (digging out the pits after a time) didn't make sense to me, either. I know people here in Alaska who use such facilities (outhouses are quite common here), and they practice what could be called "Crap(per) Rotation," as you mentioned above. They don't dig out the "full" pits at all, but just dig new ones--the old ones do "microbiologically self-clean" themselves, even though our soil temperature is lower than the soil temperatures down south. Since it works here, it must work more quickly in locations with warmer soil, which increases the microbial activity. (Septic systems also work here, although in many cases they must be periodically "fed" with flour or other things that increase the microbes' activity--and their production of heat.) Also:

I thank you all very much for your replies! This self-made predicament (which is just one of several from which Indians suffer) reminds me of a lyric in DEVO's song "Love Without Anger," on their "New Traditionalists" album:

** "Why believe in things that make it tough on you?" ** Now:

While I don't think that taking that notion to its limit is a good idea (being honest and doing what is right often 'makes it tough on you'), when the 'things' in question cause harm to everyone without helping anyone (neither the people who do them, nor anyone else), then they're just stupid, self-harming habits that should be abandoned. Their belief that touching body wastes makes them permanently "impure and polluted" means that every one of us here is, by Hindu standards, an untouchable (they call untouchables--who are considered so low as to not belong to any caste--"dalits" today; this word means "broken" [which certainly describes what others do to them if they dare to 'corrupt' members of castes]), but:

Washing with soap and water quickly fixes that problem, but to them (not all of them, of course), this doesn't remove the "impurity." It saddens me that so many members of an ancient society that can send spacecraft to the Moon and Mars are benighted--rather than enlightened (which, ironically, is a goal of a devout Hindu)--concerning the benefits of basic hygiene.
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