By Shawn Dell Joyce
The Ten Percent Challenge is presenting a series of workshops to help people get a free or inexpensive home energy audit.

These workshops, known as Home Energy Makeovers, provide detailed information about such programs of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) as Home Performance with Energy Star; Green Jobs–Green N.Y., and the new On-Bill Recovery Loan Program.

Utilizing even one of these programs could help homeowners save up to $700 on their energy bills while making their homes more comfortable.

Here are the details of three upcoming Home Energy Makeovers:

–Saturday, Feb. 25, 10:30 a.m. to noon at the Albert Wisner Public Library, 1 McFarland Drive in Warwick.

–Saturday, March 3, 10:30 a. m. to noon at the Newburgh Free Library, 124 Grand St., in Newburgh.

–Thursday, March 8, 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Walden Village Hall, 3rd Floor, at 1 Municipal Square in Walden.

You can fill out an application on the spot if you bring your past utility bills or a 12-month summary of electric and heating usage. You can also register for the Ten Percent Challenge and become part of a county-wide effort to reduce energy usage and costs by 10 percent or more this year.

Some big news from NYSERDA for towns and villages is that the New York Department of State is accepting applications for Local Government Efficiency (LGE) grants to reduce municipal expenses, and property taxes, by helping municipalities plan and implement projects that have positive impacts on taxpayers. LGE projects must demonstrate new opportunities for financial savings and operational efficiencies. This is especially important for municipalities like Walden, Montgomery and Maybrook, which have already pledged to reduce their energy use by 10 percent, as part of the Ten Percent Challenge.

NYSERDA’s FlexTech program offers cost-sharing incentives to help local leaders identify and implement cost-effective energy measures, including energy procurement and renewable generation projects.

If homeowners are looking for renewable energy systems to reduce operating costs, NYSERDA also offers significant incentives for solar panels, small wind-, and solar-thermal systems.

There also is a new program that allows you to finance the efficiency upgrades and renewable energy systems through your utility bill, meaning the cost of owning a solar hot water system is financed at a very low rate and deducted from your energy savings on your monthly bill. You don’t notice the added expense because it’s financed to be less than the energy savings; your monthly bill doesn’t increase but your energy efficiency does.

These programs and incentives don’t last long, so come to a Home Energy Makeover to learn how to take advantage of these programs. If you have any questions, contact Meridith Nierenberg, at Mid-Hudson Energy $mart Communities, meridith.nierenberg@gmail.com or 845-331-2238, or the Ten Percent Challenge at sites.google.com/site/sustainablemontgomery/ or on facebook/MontgomeryTenPercent.

Shawn Dell Joyce is the director of the Wallkill River School in Montgomery. www.WallkillRiverSchool.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce
Estimates of the earth’s carrying-capacity vary according to which population you are measuring, since some populations live more sustainably than others. Some scientists say that not only are we living beyond earth’s capacity, but we are also eating up future generations’ ability to live within the planet’s means. We are literally emptying the earth’s bank account rather than living off the interest as our ancestors did, and leaving a “balance due” for people of the future.

British geographer, Ernst George Ravenstein is credited with first estimating the carrying capacity of the earth at around 6 billion people. Now, at 6.5 billion, at least a billion of our population does not receive enough food energy to carry out a day’s work. Even though Ravenstein was operating on statistics from last century, he hit fairly close to home.

Before Ravenstein, born in 1834, the English clergyman Thomas Robert Malthus argued that human population always increases more rapidly than food supplies and that humans are condemned to breed to the point of misery and starvation. The 200 years since Malthus’ essay was first published have proven him wrong. We can artificially increase food production above birth rates, and even decline in numbers in the presence of plenty.

The World Hunger Program at Brown University estimated that, based on 1992 levels of food production and an equal distribution of food, “the world could sustain 5.5 billion vegetarians, 3.7 billion people who get 15 percent of their calories from animal products [as in much of South America], or 2.8 billion people who derive 25 percent of their calories from animal products [as in the wealthiest countries].”

Clearly we have passed all sustainable estimates and are now entering the “borrowed time” area of the population chart. In order to provide the projected 9 billion people in 2050 with 2,100 calories a day (what food-aid agencies declare the minimum caloric intake) we would have to double our global agricultural production. Humans have already plowed over most of the usable farm land on the planet, and there is a limit to any field’s fertility. Could Malthus have been right after all?

This is not a new chapter in human history. We have faced starvation before, and triumphed. Lester Brown, the noted environmental analyst, has observed: “In the 15th century, Icelanders realized that overgrazing of their grasslands was leading to soil erosion. Farmers then calculated how many sheep the land could sustain and allocated quotas among themselves, thus preserving their grasslands, and a wool industry that thrives today.”

Here are some steps you can take to reduce your ecological footprint:

–Measure that footprint at www.myfootprint.org

–Walk, bike, or share a ride instead of driving or flying.

–Have a home energy audit to determine how much energy your home is using, and
how much you might save by improving its efficiency.

–Adopt energy-saving habits such as using “low tech” clotheslines instead of the dryer.

–Eat local, in season, and organic.

–Eat less meat.

–Have smaller families and support zero population growth.

Shawn Dell Joyce is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and director of the Wallkill River School in Montgomery.

By Shawn Dell Joyce
We see the effects of globalization as local jobs are outsourced, and the recession proves that things just aren’t working. Economist and author Michael Shuman notes that “about 42 percent of our economy is ‘place based,’ or created through small, locally-owned businesses.” This means that almost half our economy depends on small independent businesses, which make up the backbone of our hometowns.

These small firms are what give our towns local color and local flavor. They are what differentiate us from every other exit on the highway that has the same six chain stores. Local concerns are also committed to their hometowns, and support the local economy by hiring people in the area, donating to support Little League and volunteer ambulance and fire services, and paying local taxes.

The key to economic recovery is localization, the reversing of globalization. Shuman estimates that we could expand our national economy to be 70 percent local or more by incorporating 10 simple steps that will actually save you money in the process.

–Localize your home! The biggest expense most of us have is our mortgage. Actually, 60 percent of our annual expenditures go for shelter. By renting from a local landlord, or buying your own home with a mortgage from a hometown bank, you can localize this expense. Local banks and credit unions typically have the best rates anyway, possibly saving you money in the process.

–Drive less! According to Shuman, Americans spend one out of every five dollars on transportation. That amounts to almost $5,000 a year! Until we can start replacing imported oil with locally produced biofuels, our best bet is to drive less.

–Using mass transit, bicycling, or walking saves money but is not very easy for us rural folks. Still, use the car sparingly. Buy gas from an independent station if you can find one, and use a local repair shop you trust.

–Eat independently! Households spend about $2,300 a year on restaurants; unfortunately most of that is spent at fast food chains. This one is a simple matter of choice with very little effort required to find a wonderful independently owned restaurant.

–Local arts and entertainment! Most people opt for a movie at a corporate multiplex at the mall. Enjoy homegrown talent! Visit the small repertory theaters to see a real play instead of a movie. Visit an art show and buy art from local artists. Buy music directly from the bands.

–Localize your health care! Get your meds from an independent pharmacy, preferably one that also uses local suppliers

–Buy locally grown! Eating locally by buying fresh vegetables, meats, and dairy products from nearby farms reduces transportation costs and vitamin loss. The closer you eat to home, the more you improve your health, your view, and your local economy.

–Localize electricity! We could save thousands a year just by increasing our energy efficiency.

–Give locally! More than 6 percent of the U.S. economy is nonprofit according to Shuman. Most of these nonprofits are in the forms of hospitals, universities, and churches, but locally we also have arts organizations, environmental groups, and many others.

–Buy local! In the time it has taken you to read this, Americans have collectively spent $23 million. Shuman says that $16 million of this figure could be spent in small locally owned stores. How far would $16 million go in your hometown today?

Shawn Dell Joyce is the director of the Wallkill River School of Art in Montgomery. www.WallkillRiverSchool.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

It’s not for money.

Rather, the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association is suing Monsanto Corp., the genetic engineering giant, to protect itself from being accused of infringing patents on transgenic, or genetically modified, seed.

The seed growers filed suit on behalf of 300,000 organic farmers and growers who shun genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

Monsanto’s seed monopoly has grown so powerful that it controls the genetics of nearly 90 percent of five major commodity crops: corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and sugar beets. This has resulted in onerous costs to farmers through high technology patent fees for seeds as well as burdensome litigation costs in defending themselves against lawsuits asserted by Monsanto, which has filed a motion to dismiss the current lawsuit.

This is ironic, considering how often Monsanto has dragged farmers through lawsuits. From 1997 through April 2010, Monsanto filed 144 suits against American farmers in at least 27 states, for alleged infringement of its transgenic seed patents and/or breach of its license to those patents, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts. As a result of these aggressive lawsuits, farmers live in fear of accidental cross-pollination of their fields by genetically-engineered crops. Monsanto has generated an atmosphere of fear and loathing in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy.

“I don’t think it’s fair that Monsanto should be able to sue my family for patent infringement because their transgenic seed trespasses onto our farm and contaminates and ruins our organic crop,” testified farmer Bryce Stephens of Kansas-based Stephens’ Land and Cattle Co. “We have had to abandon raising corn because we are afraid Monsanto wouldn’t control their genetic pollution and then they would come after us for patent infringement. It’s not right.”

Some 200 million acres of the world’s farms grew biotech crops last year, with many of these farms located next to, or near, organic farms. Genetically Modified Organisms move around in the ecosystem through pollen, wind, and natural cross-fertilization. The Union of Concerned Scientists conducted two separate independent laboratory tests on non-modified seeds “representing a substantial proportion of the traditional seed supply” for corn, soy and oilseed rape.

The test found that half the corn and soy, and 83 percent of the oilseed rape were contaminated with modified genes eight years after the genetically modified varieties were first grown on a large scale in the United States.

The reports state that “Heedlessly allowing the contamination of traditional plant varieties with genetically engineered sequences amounts to a huge wager on our ability to understand a complicated technology that manipulates life at the most elemental level.” There could be “serious risks to health” if drugs and industrial chemicals from the next generation of GM crops were consumed in food.

Some organic and conventional farmers are forced to stop growing certain crops in order to avoid genetic contamination and potential lawsuits. Jim Gerritsen, the president of OSGATA and owner of Wood Prairie Farm in Maine states: “We are family farmers and we are in court to let the judge know that our survival as farmers depends on this lawsuit. We’re not asking Monsanto for one penny. We just want justice for our farmers and we want court protection from Monsanto.”

By Shawn Dell Joyce
Winter weather has struck hard this year, and many people and municipalities are pouring on the road salt. According to the National Research Council (NRC), we Americans dump 8 million to 12 million tons of salt on our roads per year.

Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York report the highest level of salt use, with New York weighing in at 500,000 tons per year. The New York State Department of Transportation requires a road-salt application rate of 225 lbs. per lane-mile for light snow and 270 lbs. per lane-mile for each application during rapidly accumulating snow.

When you consider that there are approximately 6,000 miles of paved roadways near New York watersheds, you begin to see how all that road salt adds up. Some roads may get up to 300 tons of salt per lane-mile each year. Recently, many scientists have begun to study the effects of so much road salt on ecosystems, water quality, public health and road quality. Here are a few things you should know before your break out that sodium chloride (NaCl) the most commonly used deicer:

–Salt destroys soil structure by killing some bacteria. This allows more soil to erode into streams, taking the salt with it. Salt erosion contaminates drinking-water supplies to levels that exceed standards.

–Salt doesn’t evaporate or otherwise get removed once applied. So it remains a persistent risk to aquatic ecosystems and to water quality. Approximately 55 percent of road salt runs off with snow melt into streams, with the remaining 45 percent infiltrating through soils and into groundwater aquifers according to a 1993 study.

–Salt slowly kills trees, especially white pines, and other roadside plants. The loss of indigenous plants and trees on roadsides allows hardier salt-tolerant species to take over.

–Salt can change water chemistry, causing minerals to leach out of the soil, and it increases the acidity of water, according to Dr. Stephen Norton, a professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Maine.

–Salt cracks animals’ paws. House pets are particularly susceptible.

–Road salt seeping into drinking water changes its flavor, and supplies the excess dietary sodium associated with hypertension.

–Salt corrodes metals like automobile brake linings, frames, and bumpers, and can cause cosmetic corrosion. Auto makers pay almost $4 billion a year in efforts to prevent this.

–Salt can penetrate concrete to corrode the reinforcing rods of bridges.
Canada is considering classifying conventional deicers as toxic substances under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. California and Nevada restrict road salt use in certain areas to reduce damage to roadside vegetation. Massachusetts is using alternative deicers to prevent contamination of drinking water. New York is considering doing the same to protect New York City’s watershed.

There are alternatives to sodium chloride that are relatively harmless to the environment and still get the job done. Calcium magnesium acetate (CMA) and potassium acetate (KA) are two such alternatives currently available. They are much more expensive than salt, but if you factor in the loss of wildlife, soil erosion, water quality and corrosion, these alternatives start to look like a real bargain.

Shawn Dell Joyce is the director of the Wallkill River School of Art in Montgomery. www.WallkillRiverSchool.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce
Our buildings account for more than half of our carbon emissions and three-quarters of existing buildings will need to be renovated or remodeled in the next twenty years. We also have a small army of unemployed and underemployed contractors with tools just itching for something to do.

What if these ingenious folks were put to work retrofitting existing buildings with energy-efficient upgrades?

In Massachusetts, the city of Cambridge is doing just that, and setting an example for municipalities across the nation. Cambridge set the goal of reducing carbon emissions by 20 percent, and drawing 20 percent of municipal power from renewable sources. To meet these ambitious goals, a nonprofit, city-sponsored group was formed to create green collar jobs and increase building efficiency.

The Cambridge Energy Alliance connects local business owners with energy efficiency experts and bankers willing to loan them the money for these upgrades. The Alliance generally reduces a business’ energy use 15 to 30 percent. The loans it helps to secure are low-interest and can be repaid by the savings from the business’s utility bill.

Retrofitting thousands of old buildings has helped to stimulate a “green collar” job market in Cambridge.

Green collar jobs that are generated by encouraging energy efficiency would include tasks by such people as home energy auditors, insulation installers, weatherization workers, retrofitters for buildings, and solar installers for electricity and solar hot water systems, among others. According to Van Jones, from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and Oakland, California’s Apollo Alliance, green collar jobs are manual-labor jobs that can’t be outsourced.

“You can’t take a building you want to weatherize, put it on a ship to China and then have them do it and send it back,” said Jones in a recent New York Times interview. “So we are going to have to put people to work in this country — weatherizing millions of buildings, putting up solar panels, constructing wind farms. Those green-collar jobs can provide a pathway out of poverty for someone who has not gone to college.”

Picture this, your child graduates from high school and has the option of going away to college, or enrolling in a local trade school, which now includes green alternatives. Let’s say that young Sally might have opted for “beautician” as the only viable local career last year, but now can choose a $12 an hour job weatherizing senior housing with potential to grow to $40 an hour as a certified home energy auditor.

Or perhaps your fledgling will start at $18 an hour as a solar technician, and work his way up to $50 per hour as a certified solar installer.

“If we can get these youth in on the ground floor of the solar industry now, where they can be installers today, they’ll become managers in five years and owners in 10. And then they become inventors,” Jones told The Times. “The green economy has the power to deliver new sources of work, wealth and health to low-income people — while honoring the Earth. If you can do that, you just wiped out a whole bunch of problems.”

Shawn Dell Joyce is the director of the Wallkill River School of Art in Montgomery. www.WallkillRiverSchool.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce
Times Community Newspapers has committed to take the 10 Percent Challenge, and reduce energy usage by 10 percent (or more) in the coming year. This is no small feat considering the company’s home is a 30-year-old brick colonial-style building that was “never designed for year-round use,” according to editor and publisher Carl Aiello.

The building has been home to the publishing company for five years. Formerly, the publisher inhabited a small building in Walden that was a converted seasonal farm market. Aiello describes it as drafty. “And the pipes, which ran through the attic crawl space, froze at least once every winter,” he says.

The new office houses three publications, archives, and a conference room. The bigger building brought much needed space, but also higher utility costs and overhead. Aiello went through NYSERDA to schedule an energy audit, and was connected to Daylight Savings Company, which handles commercial audits.

The audit was quick, and the findings were fairly typical for commercial buildings. The biggest energy wasters in any building are usually heating and cooling systems, lighting, and insulation. Daylight Savings wrote up an extensive report suggesting that Times Community Newspapers upgrade the outdated HVAC and fluorescent tube lighting system, install some lighting controls, as well as temperature controls, and improve the building’s “envelope” by sealing, caulking, and insulating.

The auditor’s report states that the total cost of improvements would be $14,186, which would deliver an annual savings of $1,820 in utility bills, with an estimated payback time of 7.8 years. A follow-up call to Daylight Savings led to the recommendation that Times Community Newspapers find BPI certified contractors through the website BPI.org. There are two locally: New York State Foam & Energy LLC. of Cornwall and TNT Green Energy Solutions of Balmville.

Aiello invited TNT Green Energy to his building. TNT’s suggestion was to install 6 inches of open-cell spray foam on the slopes of the attic at a cost that far exceeds the original estimate for “improving the building envelope.” When Aiello forwarded the estimate to Daylight Savings, he was told that “at this time, NYSERDA does not offer any incentives through the Existing Facilities Program. However, your upgrade should qualify you for tax credits.”

Like most small business owners, Aeillo weighed the cost effectiveness of this upgrade and decided against it for now. He upgraded the lighting instead. Again, the price was higher than anticipated, but this time it came with an incentive program through Central Hudson.

Alliance Energy Solutions, a Connecticut-based business, replaced all the inefficient T-12 fluorescent lights with L-M4 lights. The fixtures were also outfitted with reflectors, making the rooms brighter, but with a wattage that was reduced from 188 to 49 watts per fixture. He similarly replaced 18 U-shaped lights and 10 of the old incandescent bulbs for an anticipated savings of $2,244 per year for electricity.

The upgrade cost Times Community Newspapers $6,077, but it came with a Central Hudson rebate of $3,767. The remainder is spread among 14 monthly payments of $165, while the reduction on the monthly utility bill is estimated at $187, so Aiello is already saving money.

“Other measures are common sense,” comments Aiello, “like getting people to turn off computers at the end of their workday (there are 18 here) and making sure the last person out the door lowers the thermostat and turns off lights.”

One first-floor thermostat has already been replaced by one with an automatic timer. Aiello is planning to replace the others, and possibly add some motion-activated lights in the stairway, rather than keeping them on all the time. These changes may seem small, but they add up to far more than 10 percent of Times Community Newspaper’s yearly electric usage.

Join the 10 Percent Challenge (visit Sustainable Montgomery’s website and sign on there), and tell how you are planning on saving 10 percent or more on your utility bills and I’ll write about you!

Shawn Dell Joyce is the director of the Wallkill River School of Art in Montgomery, www.WallkillRiverSchool.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

Holiday joy can be a fleeting thing this time of year, as many people feel more like Scrooge, than Tiny Tim. Behind the advertising blitz that bombards us with consumerist images of smiling, well-dressed people giving cheerfully-wrapped packages is the dark truth of depression. The United States tops the list in depression out of 14 countries in a recent World Health Organization poll.

Much holiday malaise can be traced to a sagging economy, and holiday expectations. A parent’s group,  the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, wrote letters to 24 leading toy companies and retailers to express concern about ads aimed at kids. These parents expressed dismay that they can’t afford the pricey toys that toymakers are heavily advertising to our children, and children feel diminished when they don’t get pricey toys.

It is hard to believe that we are descended from settlers’ children, who rejoiced at receiving a penny and a stick of candy as their main holiday gifts. In the 1800’s, our kin earned $1,500 per year, and would have had one nice set of clothes for church, and one shabby set for daily life. We worked twice as hard for a simple diet because we had to grow most of what we ate ourselves. Over the course of 200 years, we have grown an average of 4 inches taller and 20 pounds heavier, our houses have more than doubled in square footage, and we no longer find joy in a penny and a stick of candy.

We need to reclaim our holidays as times of family togetherness and joy, no matter what shape the economy is in. Even if you don’t celebrate the Christian holiday, or the Jewish Hannukah, or African Kwanzaa, you can still celebrate a “Secular Sabbath,” in the words of NY Times food columnist, Mark Bittman. A secular Sabbath is a break from email, cell phones, television, and all the other distractions of modern living that keep us alienated from each other.

“You need not be elderly to remember when we had no choice but to reduce activity on Sundays; stores and offices — even restaurants — were closed, there were certainly no electronics, and we were largely occupied by ourselves or our families,” writes Bittman.

Here are some ways to get more joy from the holiday season:

• Find joy in the mundane moments. Notice the details of the season, new fallen snow, laughing children, glittering icicles and the sparkle of a lit tree.
• Avoid comparing your decorated house with your neighbors’ or your co-workers’ holiday plans with your own and so forth. Instead of comparing, which is almost always unfavorable, be genuinely glad for your fellows, delight in their joy, and you in turn will feel greater satisfaction.
• Be satisfied. Don’t look for satisfaction in material things because you won’t find it there. Satisfaction is a spiritual concept, and cannot be bought or given.
• Find the true meaning of the holiday. A gift of time to the local soup kitchen or “Toys for Tots” program will  deliver a greater feeling of joy than spending more money at the mall. Look for ways to do generous acts anonymously this season. Rekindle a sense of faith in humanity as a gift to your community.
• Cherish family time. Spend more time sharing joyful experiences like caroling, baking, Christmas plays or making gifts together instead of shopping.
• Put gratitude in your attitude. Start your holidays off with a gratitude list noting all the wonderful tangible and intangible blessings you have in your life. Counting your blessings will keep you focused more on what you do have.
• Say “Thanks” by calling or writing a thank you note right away after a gift or good deed. This prolongs your joy, and shares it with the giver.
• Keep the spirit of the holidays in your heart all year. Remember to give often and generously. Make volunteerism part of your daily routine. Research indicates that both the giver and the receiver of a good deed get an endorphin boost from the act.

shawn@zestoforange.com.

By Shawn Dell Joyce

Thanksgiving is a holiday built around food. We gather, we gorge, and sometimes acknowledging the hands of the cook, perhaps thanking the divine, but rarely do we honor the hands that feed us.

Growing the food that feeds our country is one of the most thankless and low paying jobs a person could have. In 2002, the median net income for a U.S. farmer was $15,848, while hired hands and migrant workers averaged around $10,000 per year. Farming has become so unpopular that the category was recently removed from the U.S. Census, and federal prison inmates now outnumber farmers.

Migrant pickers often put in long hours, up to12 hour days, earning about 45 cents for each 32-pound bucket of tomatoes. This amount hasn’t risen in over 30 years. At that rate, workers have to pick two-and-a-half tons of tomatoes to earn minimum wage. Most farm workers don’t get sick days, overtime, or health care. Some farmers often don’t fare much better.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. If we stopped putting such an emphasis on “cheap” and instead put an emphasis on “fair” maybe those hands that grow our food could afford to eat as well. Raising farm wages would have little effect on supermarket prices, mainly because farmers and farm workers are paid only about six to nine cents out of every retail dollar spent.

If we raised farm wages by 35 percent and passed that cost to consumers, it would raise the retail price by only a few pennies according to the Center for Immigrant Studies. The total cost to consumers for all fresh produce would add up to less than $34 per year, per family. If we raised wages by 70 percent, that cost would be about $67. Divide this over 52 weekly trips to the supermarket and you’re looking at spending barely a dollar more each week. Wouldn’t you spend that much to know that people didn’t suffer to feed you?

In January 2001, the U.S. Department of Labor informed Congress that farm workers were “a labor force in significant economic distress.” The report cited farm workers’ “low wages, sub-poverty annual earnings, (and) significant periods of un- and underemployment” adding that “agricultural worker earnings and working conditions are either stagnant or in decline.”

For agriculture to be sustainable, it must provide a living for those who work our land. Let’s honor the hands that feed us by restoring the dignity of a fair wage to farmers and farm workers.

Buy your produce from local farms where you can meet the farm workers and see for yourself if they are treated fairly. The smaller the farm, the more likely they are to treat workers well, and often have only family members working the farm.

shawn@zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

Since Thomas Crapper invented the water closet (yes, that’s where the word came from), many experts have come to view our sanitation system as the worst idea of all time. We use 3.5 gallons (per flush) of our best drinking water to dilute a few ounces of “excellent fertilizer and soil conditioner” to create an expensive, wasteful disposal problem.

The World Health Organization recently declared that waterborne sanitation is obsolete, and only waterless disposal of waste will allow enough water for drinking, cooking and washing in the world’s largest cities.

Waterless and low flow toilets could save the average household as much as $50 to $100 a year on water, adding up to $11.3 million everyday nationally. These are not the same low-flow toilets that gained a well-deserved bad reputation ten years ago. Technology has improved even the lowly Crapper so that most new toilets use only about 1.6 gallons per flush (gpf).

Sweden has popularized a dual-bowl toilet with separate compartments and separate ways of treating human waste. This system uses no water and results in a high quality fertilizer and composted human manure as byproducts. The separating toilets cost comparably to American toilets, but may take a while to catch on. Dual-flush toilets are becoming more popular here in the States, and offer users a choice of .8 gpf or 1.6gpf depending on the size of the job.

Composting toilets are completely waterless and can be self-contained or attached to a whole building system. If you have many bathrooms, a whole building system would be the most economical. It connects all the dry toilets to a single, large compost tank usually in the basement. There is no sewer hookup, so the plumbing ends in the compost tank.

A self-contained composting toilet is essentially a compost drum enclosed inside a toilet with a fold-out handle and tray. Some also contain fans and vents to eliminate odors. We have both a low flow toilet and a composting toilet in our home. We bought the composting toilet locally from Stoves Plus in Thompson Ridge. It is interesting to see who goes where, and we often categorized our guests by their level of queasiness with our plumbing.  Once you get over the initial shock of “no water in the bowl” it is easy to appreciate the simplicity of a composting toilet. Wood chips go in, tree food comes out.

Incinerating toilets are similar to composting toilets in that they are waterless. But they use electricity to incinerate human waste to a clean ash eliminating both pathogens (good) and soil nutrients (bad).

Many of these alternatives are costly and require a bit of plumbing know-how to install. If you want to reduce your water use today:

—– Try putting a brick in your toilet tank to save up to 5 gallons of water per day.

—– Install a $5 Frugal Flush Flapper valve in your existing toilet and conserve half your water with each flush.

—– Try a $1 Toilet Fill Cycle Diverter to save about ½ gallon per flush.

—– Pee on the trees if you live in a secluded area where no one will know.

—– Flush less often using the “yellow-mellow” rule

—– Check your toilet for leaks which could waste more than 100 gallons of water per day. Add a few drops of food coloring to the tank and see if any colored water leaks into the bowl after a few minutes.

shawn@zestoforange.com