📅 Thought for today:
‘All is disgust when a man leaves his own nature and does what is unfit.’
— Sophocles
#thoughtfortoday #disgust #natural #biosolids #excrement #uring #latrines #wealldoit #sorrynotsorry
I have been reading a book called “The Big Necessity” by Rose George.
It is 12 years since it was published, and I wonder if anything has changed since then.
If you are squeamish or have a low tolerance for the output of bodily functions, I wouldn’t recommend it, but you should ask yourself, where does all our excrement and urine go?
It is an eye-opening book and I am very glad it is not a scratch and sniff book. Rose George travels the world exploring what happens to all the “biosolids” (to use industry-speak for the stuff that is left over when you take the liquid away). Some of the more alarming “solutions” come from America – I really hope things have changed there.
The projects to bring sanitation to Africa and India are fascinating, particularly the psychology behind encouraging people in rural villages to stop “open defecating” and to use some form of a latrine.
It is full of interesting people too – people who do the things you and I would probably turn our noses up at. They are inspiring people and almost certainly have saved millions of lives (that is no exaggeration).
Incidentally, disgust as an emotion is linked to survival – literally keeping us safe by making us recoil from things that might be harmful to our existence.
